October 2020

16Oct

Retirement tontines: Using a classical finance mechanism as an alternative source of retirement income

Households face two related but distinct financial challenges as they prepare for retirement: first accumulating enough retirement savings during their working years, and then spending down their assets wisely after retiring. A substantial literature reaching a wide range of conclusions examines the extent to which households are saving adequately for retirement. But there is more consensus about the challenges households face when deciding how best to spend down their savings. People do not know how long they or their...

October 16, 2020
News, Slider, ,
Read more...
09Oct

Pensions for State and Local Government Workers Not Covered by Social Security: Do Benefits Meet Federal Standards?

By Laura Quinby, Jean-Pierre Aubry, Alicia H. Munnell Federal law allows certain state and local governments to exclude employees from Social Security coverage if the employees are provided with a sufficiently generous pension. Approximately 6.5 million such workers were not covered by Social Security in 2018. Retirement systems for non-covered workers have become less generous in recent years, and a few plans could exhaust their trust funds within the next decade, putting beneficiaries at risk. This article examines data...

October 9, 2020
Articles, System Sustainability, , , , ,
Read more...
09Oct

US. Can designing DC plans with deferred income annuity options help fill the pension gap?

Pensions, which provided financial security in retirement for previous generations, are all but a thing of the past today, leaving employees looking for the best strategies to ensure they have sufficient savings and income in retirement to last them for as long as they live. Saving in 401(k) and individual retirement accounts is the primary tool today’s savers are using to achieve financial stability in retirement, but guaranteed income is also appealing. Social Security provides one guaranteed income stream...

October 9, 2020
News, Slider, , ,
Read more...
08Oct

What Does Retirement Look Like in a Pandemic?

David Jarmul and his wife, Champa, long envisioned what their retirement would look like. After returning from a two-year Peace Corps stint in Moldova in 2018, the couple, both 67, planned extensive travel, including trips to the Baltics, West Africa and Sri Lanka. “Travel is our passion — it’s what we love to do,” said Mr. Jarmul, who retired in 2015 as head of news and communications for Duke University. For now, the two are living a Covid-19 retirement...

October 8, 2020
News, Slider, , ,
Read more...
07Oct

US. Half the population struggles with retirement

Way back in 1992, an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article warned that “[w]ith savings rates down, the future of Social Security in question and traditional plans going the way of the eight-track tape, experts say there’s a retirement crisis looming in America.” Read also US. Can designing DC plans with deferred income annuity options help fill the pension gap? A non-stop drumbeat of articles featuring similar warnings have continued down to the present day, although “retirement crisis” remains opaque as a...

October 7, 2020
News, Slider, , ,
Read more...

September 2020

25Sep

Kenya. Workers can now access pensions to buy house

Workers can now access up to Sh7 million or a maximum of 40 percent of their retirement savings to buy their first residential house after Treasury Secretary Ukur Yatani signed the amended regulations. Pension schemes have until September 14, 2021 to amend their rules to allow their members early to access their savings for house purchase. The law is meant to boost home ownership in a market where most people employed in the formal sector are unable to raise...

September 25, 2020
News, Slider, , ,
Read more...
21Sep

Japan proposal on contribution limits could hurt

Japan's regulators are moving to put "fairer" contribution limits for corporate defined contribution plans in place this year but analysts warn their proposed changes could just as easily shrink Japan's DC market as expand it. Along the way, some of Japan's biggest corporate plan sponsors could be forced to restructure the mix of DC and defined benefit retirement plans they offer to employees. At issue are current rules that mandate across-the-board reductions in DC contribution ceilings for companies that...

September 21, 2020
News, Slider, , ,
Read more...
11Sep

Gender Gap in Pension Income: Cross-Country Analysis and Role of Gender Attitudes

By Anna Veremchuk, University of Tartu The aim of this paper is to study the gender pension gap in Europe based on the newest EU-SILC data from the 2018 wave. The contribution of the paper is twofold. First, it provides evidence on factors shaping the gender pension gap in a large number of EU countries. Second, it analyses the relationship between the pension gap and: (1) the coverage of occupational (second pillar) pensions and (2) gender attitudes. The main factor contributing to gender...

September 11, 2020
Adequacy, Articles, , , ,
Read more...
02Sep

Bitcoin As a Retirement Plan Investment?

The cryptocurrency is legally permissible as a 401(k) investment under ERISA, but some plan sponsors may have questions about whether it is prudent. Bitwage launched what it touted as the “world’s first Bitcoin 401(k) plan” in May. Bitwage provides cryptocurrency payroll and invoicing services. It says the 401(k) offering is a four-way strategic collaboration between Bitwage, Leading Retirement Solutions, Kingdom Trust and Gemini. Leading Retirement Solutions provides the administration and recordingkeeping for the 401(k) plan. Kingdom Trust is the custodian,...

September 2, 2020
News, Slider, , ,
Read more...

August 2020

31Aug

India. PFRDA mulling launching minimum assured return-based pension scheme

The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) is working on a minimum assured return-based pension scheme, its Chairman Supratim Bandyopadhyay said. The pension authority is in talks with pension funds and actuarial firms to work out the modalities of the proposed scheme, he said. "Under the PFRDA Act, we have the mandate to launch a minimum assured return scheme. Under pension fund (PF) schemes, the funds that are managed are mark-to-market. So obviously there is some volatility and...

August 31, 2020
News, Slider,
Read more...