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23 Matching News Items |
| 1. |
Alicia H. Munnell in MarketWatch
Nov. 6, 2013
"Something exciting has happened in government accounting, for those interested in defined-benefit pensions.... Until recently, the government accounts have only showed the assets being held in defined benefit plans. Now they show promised benefits.... Reporting pension benefits, rather than pension assets, has led to an increase in household net worth relative to previous publications of both the [National Income and Product Accounts] and the Flow of Funds."
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| 2. |
Alicia H. Munnell in MarketWatch
July 28, 2022
"While private equity -- unlike Bitcoin -- passes the threshold test under ERISA of being a generally acceptable asset class to a broad group of investors, ... it is too opaque for most 401(k) fiduciaries to perform appropriate due diligence.... Moreover, it takes years for returns to be realized, and participants who leave early will have paid higher fees for nothing. Private equity simply adds unnecessary risk to retirement saving."
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| 3. |
Alicia H. Munnell in MarketWatch
May 1, 2017
"[P]eople seem to have a psychological attachment to their pile; they have spent a lifetime building it up and may be reluctant to draw it down. Second, people are fearful about end-of-life health care needs and want to be sure they have enough money to cover their expenses. Finally, people seem to have a desire to leave a bequest ... So, without some guidance, chances are high that retirees will deprive themselves of necessities. One way to help may be to put more emphasis on the Required Minimum Distributions[.]"
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| 4. |
Alicia H. Munnell in MarketWatch
Aug. 14, 2014
"[T]he trustees of the Social Security system (the Social Security commissioner, the secretaries of the treasury, of health and human services, and of labor, and two public trustees) decided to eliminate any mention of replacement rates from the 2014 Trustees Report -- the document that provides an annual update on the system's finances in the short run and over a 75-year horizon. The absence of such information has serious policy implications."
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| 5. |
Alicia H. Munnell in MarketWatch
June 27, 2013
"Karen Ferguson, the [Pension Rights Center's] president and a Harvard-trained lawyer, contended that once a plan is an ERISA plan it cannot thereafter become a church plan. A few weeks ago, 10 years after the original opinion, the IRS rescinded its decision and the PBGC accepted the plan back under its protection. The reversal came just in time, because the plan was about to have run out of money and would have been unable to pay benefits to more than 800 participants."
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| 6. |
Alicia H. Munnell in MarketWatch
Mar. 18, 2013
"Actively managed, high-fee funds should be banned from any type of account that receives favorable treatment under the Internal Revenue Code to encourage retirement saving. Many studies have shown that actively managed funds underperform index funds, even before accounting for the higher fees charged by the former ... But broker-sold mutual funds perform worst of all."
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| 7. |
Alicia H. Munnell in MarketWatch
July 31, 2013
"Theoretically, the way pensions are currently structured in the United States, sponsors bear all the risks in defined benefit plans and employees bear all the risks in defined contribution plans, such as 401(k)s. Placing all of the risks on one party or another doesn't seem like an optimal outcome. And sponsors of defined benefit plans, at least, are looking for a better arrangement -- a little in the United States, more in Canada, and a lot in The Netherlands."
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| 8. |
Alicia H. Munnell in MarketWatch
Jan. 14, 2015
"[U]nder the regulations issued in 2004, the plan satisfies its fiduciary obligation if the investment preserves the dollar value of the rolled balances. In other words, the money can be invested in a money-market fund. The problem is that the fees charged to the forced transfer accounts often outpace the low returns earned by the conservative investments prescribed by the DOL's safe harbor rules, causing account balances to decline."
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| 9. |
Alicia H. Munnell in MarketWatch
Nov. 17, 2013
"[In] two recent meetings, participants -- who do seemed to be plugged into Washington developments -- suggested the only change in retirement policy we could expect is that all new 401(k) contributions would have to go into a Roth plan rather than a conventional 401(k) plan. If true, such a change is a craven play to increase tax revenues in the short run, without any consideration for long-run revenues or the effect on retirement saving."
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| 10. |
Alicia H. Munnell in MarketWatch
Aug. 14, 2020
"In the next couple of years, states -- which must balance their budgets every year -- will face the tradeoff of deep cuts in education and health care and further layoffs, on the one hand, and funding their pensions on the other. Most observers would probably agree that pension funding could be postponed. More fundamentally, the standard recommendation that sponsors need to eliminate all their unfunded liability over 30 years is increasingly being called into question."
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