Thursday, March 28, 2013

Retirement Options Dwindle

The recession, the housing crisis, increasing taxes and a turbulent employment landscape has made it nearly impossible for many people nearing retirement to do so comfortably, according to a recent study. The report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute shows that employer-provided retirement plans and other savings vehicles will not be adequate to fund retirement even for those who have saved, and that the news is even worse in the black community. Moreover, it appears government is looking to cut retirement plan benefits further, which means the problem is only going to get worse. For more on this continue reading the following article from Economist’s View

The "news isn’t good" about the shift from defined-benefit to defined-contribution pension plans:
Declining Wealth Brings a Rising Retirement Risk, by Bruce Bartlett, Commentary, NY Times: ...[In] defined-benefit ... pension plans..., workers are promised a specific income at retirement, which the employer provides. The employer bears all the risk of market fluctuations. Under a defined contribution scheme, such as a 401(k) plan, the worker and the employer jointly contribute to a tax-deductible and tax-deferred account from which the worker will finance retirement. ...
Now the first generation of workers who have virtually all their pension saving in defined-contribution plans is nearing retirement, and the news isn’t good. According to a March 19 report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, only about half of workers nearing retirement have confidence that they have enough money saved for an adequate retirement.
Not surprisingly, retirement saving has taken a back seat to more pressing concerns – coping with unemployment, maintaining standards of living during an era of slow wage growth, putting children through increasingly expensive colleges and so on. ...
This problem is much more severe for black Americans. ... The wealth gap isn’t only racial, it’s generational...
What’s really depressing about these studies is the lack of solutions and the likelihood that the problem will only get worse.
Republicans in Congress have pressed for years to convert Social Security, a classic defined-benefit pension, into a defined contribution plan, and also to convert Medicare into a voucher program. These changes would shift even more of the financial risk in retirement onto families that have yet to adapt to fundamental changes in employer pensions and the economy over the last 30 years. The future doesn’t look pretty.
Members of Congress appear to be eager to cut retirement benefits even further to show they can make the hard choices (and the president seems to be on board). They should raise the payroll cap instead, but the "hard choice" that would hit the people who can afford it isn't under consideration. It's not hard to imagine why.
 
This blog post was republished with permission from The Economist's View.

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