Saving for retirement is a must these days and retirement confidence in general is pretty low. Our recent retirement preparedness study revealed that only about 20% of employees feel they’re on track to reach their desired income in retirement. In order to bridge this gap, it’s no secret many of us need to save more. 
Continue reading “Can The IRS Help You Save For Retirement?”
Although October is usually the month employees are focusing on their health insurance options for next year, it’s good to redirect their attention to a decision that has a much longer term impact then what type of health coverage they’ll have for 2013, and that is how much they are contributing towards their retirement. It’s not a fund ticker symbol or license plate number, but what NS4RW stands for is National Save For Retirement Week, created by Senate Resolution 555 that calls for the week of October 21, 2012 to highlight 3 goals: Continue reading “Does Your Plan Include NS4RW?”
As a pre-teen back in 1978, I remember the first time I watched Saturday Night Live and the musical guest that night was Devo singing Whip It. Imagine my amazement when my stepson got us free tickets to a concert this weekend to see none other than Devo, who is on tour with Blondie this fall. The band members may now be eligible for Social Security, but they still got the crowd to their feet with their electric sound. And who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? The silver-haired band members even wrote a new song this year, Don’t Roof Rack Me, Bro, dedicated to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s dog incident, which occurred in 1983 when Romney traveled twelve hours with the dog in a crate on his car’s roof rack. The Devo band members are like many of the oldest of the Baby Boomer generation who refuse to see themselves as old or ready to retire. You may have a large population of these aging rockers yourself, so how can you help them face the reality of approaching retirement? Continue reading “Are You DEVOted to Your Older Workforce?”
I recently spoke to an employee who had decided, at age 54, that it was time to start focusing on retirement. Her goal was to retire at age 65, and she was wondering if that would be possible, considering she had not been saving for retirement for the past several years. She’d been in a financial fog during that time while trying to recover both emotionally and financially from a rough divorce. Continue reading “U.S. Chamber of Commerce Speaks Out on the Future of Retirement Security”
Would the government want to encourage workers to save LESS? A recent proposal by the deficit reduction committee calls for a reduction to the total combined annual limitations for both the employer and employee to retirement savings plans. Called the 20/20 Cap Proposal, the committee suggested a cap of the lesser of 20% of an employee’s compensation or $20,000 in annual total employer and employee retirement plan contributions. Although this sounds higher than the current 2012 deferral limit of $17,000 that employees are restricted to now, the 20/20 Cap Proposal will also include employer contributions that now has a $50,000 or 100% of income limitation for 2012. This combined limit of only $20,000 will severely limit the tax benefits of business owners to sponsor a retirement plan. According to the American Benefits Council, “ When a typical small business owner evaluates the significant legal responsibilities, risks, and costs of voluntarily sponsoring a retirement plan, it is often the promise of meaningful tax benefits for key employees that is the deciding factor in choosing to establish and maintain a retirement plan. But if tax benefits to decision-makers are substantially diminished, businesses that would have considered plan sponsorship may no longer do so, and existing plan sponsors might reduce employer matching contributions or stop offering retirement plans altogether. All employees would suffer because employer sponsorship offers considerable advantages for workers, including strict fiduciary standards; participation rules that ensure that benefits are delivered across all income groups; easy payroll reduction; lower fees from group participation; access to financial education; and often significant employer contributions.” Continue reading “A Vision of Retirement Under the 20/20 Proposal”
Talking with a group of pre-retirees, one of the people in the room (a born entertainer) used Styrofoam coffee cups as visual aids to illustrate his point. We were talking about incomes and expenses during retirement, and he broke out into a comedy routine/illustration of his financial life. He filled a big pitcher with water and filled the first cup, broke out a Sharpie and labeled it “Pension.” He had been an employee of the phone company for 40 years and has a very solid pension income. The next cup he labeled “Social Security” and he filled that cup about ¾ full. The 3rd cup he put a few drops of water into and labeled it “Investments.” He said the 401(k) plan arrived a little too late in his career and he had not participated until the last several years of his career, plus he had a number of children that all went to college which left his personal savings and investment balances rather low. Continue reading “Retirement Preparedness: A Wake-Up Call for Generation X Investors”
Retirement is not simply ceasing to work but rather a step toward something – a whole new phase in life. Many people don’t realize that until it is too late. A friend of mine was discussing this with me over the weekend. He works for a utility company in upstate New York as a project manager. He was exclaiming that these guys who recently retired are coming back to work for him as part-time retirees. Continue reading “Retirement Preparedness: Move Toward Retirement Not “Away” from Working”
