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National Institute on Retirement Security Comment Letter to DOL on Lifetime Income Illustration in Pension Benefit Statements (PDF)

"NIRS believes that it is important for the Department to make sure that the safe harbor assumptions produce likely outcomes that would be realistic estimates for all employees. For those individuals who would like to see benefit projections based on more aggressive assumptions, those can be completed with often just a few clicks on a website."

Federal Employees' Retirement System and the Thrift Savings Plan: A Combined Approach to Retirement Security (PDF)

"One of the most well-known transformations of a pension system occurred when President Ronald Reagan signed the Federal Employees' Retirement System Act into law on June 6, 1986. This law moved federal employees from the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), to a retirement system that integrated Social Security, a DB pension, and a DC savings plan. This issue brief reviews this new system, known as the Federal Employees' Retirement System (FERS). More specifically, this issue brief explores its impact on the funding of benefits and the adequacy of retirement income benefits for federal employees over the last twenty-five years."

Retirement Security 2015: A Roadmap for Policy Makers (PDF)

36 pages. "An overwhelming majority of Americans believe there is a retirement crisis.... Three in four Americans remain highly anxious about their retirement outlook, but the concern has dissipated slightly as the economy has recovered.... Even though Americans feel slightly less stressed about their retirement prospects, support for steady and reliable retirement income from a pension is high and growing.... Americans see retirement benefits as a job feature that is almost as important as salary.... Americans express strong support for pensions for public employees. Few Americans realize that 75 percent of public pension costs are paid for with employee contributions and investment returns.... Protecting Social Security benefits is increasingly important."

Pensions and Retirement Security 2013: A Roadmap for Policy Makers (PDF)

"Americans remain highly anxious about their retirement outlook despite stabilization of the financial markets, declining unemployment and increased consumer confidence.... Americans are highly supportive of pensions and see these plans as a way to improve retirement readiness ... Americans feel that leaders in Washington do not understand their struggles to save for retirement. Americans overwhelmingly would support Congressional action to provide all Americans with access to a new type of privately run pension plan. More than 90 percent would favor a new pension plan that is available to all Americans, is portable from job to job, and provides a monthly check throughout retirement for those who contribute."

Financial Asset Inequality and Its Implications for Retirement Security (PDF)

14 pages. "This issue brief ... finds that financial asset inequality has increased over time.... [U]sing 2016 data, this issue brief finds a similarly skewed ownership of financial assets among the Millennial and Generation X cohorts.... [T]hese households face an increasing retirement savings burden due to the decline of pensions in the private sector and longer life expectancy. The persistent concentration of financial assets among the wealthy, combined with anemic retirement savings among most households, poses a significant economic threat to the retirement security of many working Americans."

Lessons for Private Sector Retirement Security from Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands (PDF)

"This paper ... [outlines] social security and universal, quasi-universal, and voluntary employer-provided retirement plans in Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands.... [W]hile the level of risk borne by employees varies across the three countries' retirement income systems, risks are pooled among workers or offset by employers and government to a greater extent than in the U.S."

An Update on Retirement Plan Choices for Public Employees and Employers (PDF)

38 pages. "When given the choice between a primary DB or DC plan, public employees overwhelmingly choose the DB pension plan. DC plans are less cost efficient than DB plans, due to lower investment returns, and the lack of longevity risk pooling. Some states have considered moving employees from a DB-only to a DC-only structure in an attempt to address an unfunded liability. Making this shift, however, does nothing to close any existing funding shortfalls, and can actually increase retirement costs. Traditionally, employers bear most of the risk in DB plans, and employees bear most of the risk in DC plans. The public sector has always had cost sharing in its DB pensions and employees have experienced increases in their portion of plan contribution in recent years."

Observations on the NIRS Private Retirement System Analysis: Data 'Minding' is In Order

"Last week the National Institute on Retirement Security released a report ... that claimed that the median retirement account balance among all working individuals is ... $0.00. Moreover, that same report claims that '57 percent (more than 100 million) of working age individuals do not own any retirement account assets in an employer-sponsored 401(k)-type plan, individual account or pension.' ... [M]uch of the data -- and key elements, such as wealth, income, participation and retirement savings -- that underlie the conclusions is 'self-reported' which ... even the report's authors acknowledge '...can be problematic...'.... [C]aution in applying the conclusions seems well-advised."

Preserving Retirement Income Security for Public Sector Employees (PDF)

42 pages. "[M]ost public retirement systems provide new members with a DB pension benefit or a DB benefit in combination with a DC account. Only a very small number of systems provide only a DC benefit.... 71 percent of the plans surveyed credit their members with interest on their contributions if they leave and request a refund.... [A]ll public DB plans allow for the purchase of service credits for prior military service, and more than half of the plans surveyed allow for the purchase of credits for prior out-of-state government service.... A number of plans have features that increase benefits for short or moderate term employees."

Social Security at 90: A Roadmap for the Program's Future (PDF)

72 pages. "This study explores Americans' preferred approach to addressing Social Security's financing gap.... This survey's primary finding is that Americans overwhelmingly want to see Social Security's financing gap closed by bringing in more revenues -- and are willing to contribute more to strengthen the program's finances.... The trade-off analysis finds that, compared with the status quo, 82 percent of respondents prefer a package of changes that increases revenues, pays for targeted benefit improvements, and eliminates the financing gap."