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Vanguard: Plan Design, Participant Behavior Trends Remained Strong in 2025

"Plan design and participant behavior trends that worked well for defined contribution participants in 2024 continued into 2025 ... Last year, the average participant account balance increased by 13% year-over-year, hitting a record high of $167,970 on December 31, 2025. Vanguard reported that 45% of participants increased their deferral rates in 2025, either on their own or as part of an automatic annual increase."  MORE >>

Use of the Brokerage Option in Vanguard DC Plans (PDF)

"In 2020, one in five Vanguard plans offered a self-directed brokerage option. Larger plans were somewhat more likely to offer the feature, and one-third of Vanguard plan participants had access to the option. Interestingly, 21% percent of plans with a brokerage option were law firms -- and on average, 6% of law firm plan assets were invested in brokerage. Forty-four percent of law firms on our platform offer the brokerage feature."  MORE >>

How America Saves for Retirement: 2013 DC Plan Data from Vanguard (PDF)

"In 2013, the median participant account balance was $31,396 and the average was $101,650. Vanguard participants' median and average account balances rose by 13% and 18%, respectively, during 2013.... Eighty-six percent of plan sponsors offered target-date funds at year-end 2013, up 26% compared with year-end 2008.... At year-end 2013, 34% of Vanguard plans had adopted automatic enrollment, up two percentage points from 2012."

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Vanguard Reports Record 401(k) Account Balances

"In an increase fueled mostly by larger plans (those with 1,000 or more participants), 34% of Vanguard plans, including 60% of larger plans, have [moved to automatic enrollment] to help their employees save for retirement. This is up from 24% five years ago.... Forty percent of Vanguard participants now use [professionally managed investment] options, which include target-date funds, other balanced funds, and a managed account program. More than half (52%) of Vanguard plans are offering the Roth 401(k) feature[.]"  MORE >>

Vanguard May Curb 401(k) Trading by Southwest Pilots

"Vanguard Group is ... threatening to prevent Southwest Airlines pilots who subscribe to a monthly newsletter called 401k Maximizer from purchasing the three Vanguard funds in their union's retirement plan, according to officials at Vanguard, the pilots union and the newsletter. Fewer than 1,000 of the approximately 8,000 pilots in the Southwest Airlines Pilots' Association $2.6 billion 401(k) retirement plan subscribe to Maximizer, but they can generate $30 million to $45 million of trades in each fund in the week after the newsletter changes its investment model[.]"  MORE >>

How America Saves for Retirement: 2012 DC Plan Data from Vanguard (PDF)

"At year-end 2012, 36% of all Vanguard participants were solely invested in an automatic investment program -- compared with just 17% at the end of 2007. Twenty-seven percent of all participants were invested in a single target-date fund; another 6% held one traditional balanced fund; and 3% used a managed account program.... Because of the growing use of target-date options, [Vanguard anticipates] that 55% of all participants and 80% of new plan entrants will be entirely invested in a professionally managed allocation by 2017."  MORE >>

Vanguard to Pay $40M in Target-Date Sell-Off Case

"Vanguard has agreed to pay $40 million to settle a long-running lawsuit over a selloff that investors likened to an 'elephant stampede' from its target-date funds that left retail investors to take a huge capital gains tax hit. The selloff involved multimillion-dollar corporate retirement plans getting out of the standard target funds and into the institutional equivalents." [Verduce v. Vanguard Chester Funds, No. 22-0955 (E.D. Penn. settlement agreement filed Nov. 6, 2024)]  MORE >>

Vanguard's Rosy 401(k) Study Doesn't Reflect Reality for Most Americans

"It's good news that Vanguard plan members have increased their contributions and that their plans have expanded coverage. Unfortunately, the Vanguard study doesn't reflect the reality that the U.S. retirement system isn't working for most Americans. Instead, many who are approaching their post-career years are finding that retirement financial security is becoming an elusive pipedream."  MORE >>

The Vanguard Retirement Outlook: A National Perspective on Retirement Readiness (PDF)

31 pages. "Among late baby boomers, high-income workers are in good shape to meet their retirement spending needs. Low- and middle-income workers may struggle. [The] retirement outlook for Generation X and millennials is modestly better.... [This report will] highlight the potential to enhance retirement readiness by expanding access to the capital markets, reducing frictions that limit workers' ability to liquidate home equity, and accelerating adoption of smart defined contribution (DC) plan designs [and] discuss actions that workers can take to boost their retirement readiness."  MORE >>

Vanguard, Retirement Clearinghouse Set Sights on IRAs

"[T]he expanded collaboration by the two firms will help reconnect IRA holders with retirement funds they may have lost or forgotten.... Vanguard will now be sending select small-balance IRAs on its platform to RCH to facilitate investors reconnecting with their money."  MORE >>

Vanguard Retirement Exec Says Crypto 401(k) Offerings Are 'Very Premature'

"While BlackRock, Fidelity Investments and a handful of other asset management firms are racing to get their applications for a spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund approved, not every asset manager is buying into the crypto craze.... Dave Stinnett, [Vanguard's] head of strategic retirement consulting ... [said] that Vanguard believes putting a cryptocurrency fund option into a 401(k) lineup would be 'very premature.' "

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Vanguard Group Becomes Second Domino to Fall in 401(k) Recordkeeper Detente on Plan Portability

"[Vanguard announced] that it hired Retirement Clearinghouse (RCH) to make it radically easier for a 401(k) plan participant to pack up their pension assets with their lunchbox and pocket calculator in a job switch.... Vanguard's buy-in came after RCH establish a modest track record by consolidating more than 290,000 retirement accounts with more than $10 billion in assets into existing 401(k) or IRA accounts."  MORE >>

How America Saves 2019: Vanguard Defined Contribution Plan Data (PDF)

121 pages. "Over the past decade, plan sponsors have increasingly turned to plan design to influence employee retirement savings behavior. As a result, plan participation rates have improved and participant portfolio construction has also improved.... [This study provides] a 15-year look back highlighting automatic enrollment and the evolution of balanced investment strategies."  MORE >>

Evaluating the Changed Collection of Equity Mutual Funds for Vanguard Participants in the Duke University Retirement Plan

"[The authors] compare the new lineup of funds with the Vanguard funds that have been cut from the retirement plan.... [T]he new plan contains funds which on average have outreturned their benchmarks by more than the Vanguard funds that have been cut. [The authors] also characterize the styles of the funds in the new lineup to help the construction of balanced portfolios."

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Vanguard Announces the Passing of Founder John C. Bogle

"John Clifton Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group ... died [January 16] in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. He was 89.... He introduced the first index mutual fund for investors and, in the face of skeptics, stood behind the concept until it gained widespread acceptance; and he drove down costs across the mutual fund industry by ceaselessly campaigning in the interests of investors."  MORE >>

Vanguard Will No Longer Offer Its Signature S&P 500 Index Fund in Its Own Employees' Retirement Fund

"At Vanguard, which popularized the S&P 500 index funds, workers will no longer be able to choose that option in their 401(k) retirement plan.... Vanguard painted the slimming down of its fund choices as a better option for employees. Money now in the funds that are being dropped will be transferred into Target Date Retirement mutual funds based on the employee's age, starting June 25."  MORE >>

Vanguard Sees 75% of DC Participants in Professionally Managed Options by 2021

"By year-end 2016, Vanguard said 46% of participants invested in a single target-date fund, 3% had a balanced fund and 4% invested solely in a managed account. Only 17% of participants were invested solely in one of these options in 2007.... 85% of new participants -- those entering a DC plan for the first time last year -- were solely invested in one of the professionally managed investment options."  MORE >>

Vanguard Growing Faster Than Everybody Else Combined

"In the last three calendar years, investors sank $823 billion into Vanguard funds, the company says. The scale of that inflow becomes clear when it is compared with the rest of the mutual fund industry -- more than 4,000 firms in total. All of them combined took in just a net $97 billion during that period, Morningstar data shows. Vanguard, in other words, scooped up about 8.5 times as much money as all of its competitors."  MORE >>

Text of District Court Opinion Rejecting Use of Vanguard's Fees to Determine Reasonableness of Proprietary Investment Fund's Fees (PDF)

"Plaintiffs rely on [an expert's comparison of] Putnam mutual funds' average fees to Vanguard passively-managed index funds' average fees.... Vanguard is a low-cost mutual fund provider operating index funds 'at-cost.' ... Putnam mutual funds operate for profit and include both index and actively managed investment. [The] analysis thus compares apples and oranges. Moreover ... the Plaintiffs cite no relevant case law holding that such ranges or averages are unreasonable as matter of law." [Brotherston v. Putnam Investments, Inc., No. 15-13825 (D. Mass. Mar. 30, 2017)]

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The New 401(k) Argument: Vanguard Costs Too Much

"As the low-hanging fruit becomes plucked, plaintiffs must stretch further with their complaints. The Anthem case is particularly bold, setting three precedents for 401(k) lawsuits. To start, Vanguard funds are accused of being too expensive.... The second precedent is that four of the cited funds are indexed.... The third and final claim ... is the boldest. The suit suggests that even switching to the cheapest available institutional share class may be insufficient."  MORE >>