January 2025
10Jan

Pensions Investment Review: Unlocking the UK pensions market for growth

By Department for Work and Pensions & HM Treasury In July 2024 the Chancellor announced a landmark Pensions Review, the first phase of which was purposed with exploring new ways to boost investment, increasing saver returns and tackling waste in the pensions system. The joint HM Treasury-Department for Work and Pensions Minister Emma Reynolds MP was asked by the Chancellor to lead the first phase of the review, which is focussed on four specific areas. Get the report here

January 10, 2025
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09Jan

Why millions of young Chinese are refusing to make pension payments

China’s pension system is in danger of running out of cash within a decade due to severe underfunding. Now it faces a new threat: Tens of millions of mostly young workers are refusing to pay into it. On today’s Big Take Asia Podcast, host K. Oanh Ha talks to Bloomberg’s Qianwei Zhang about why workers are boycotting the system and what’s at stake for the struggling economy and the Communist Party. Here is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation: Gao Pengcheng...

January 9, 2025
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December 2024
19Dec

US Pension Plans Set to Increase Contributions in 2025

Approximately 58% of pension funds in the U.S.—including public, corporate and multi-employer plans—reported that their funded status increased in 2024, according to a survey of pension fund professionals commissioned by Ortec Finance. Approximately 30% of plans reported that their funding status is unchanged, while 12% said their funding status decreased this year. While funded status is generally increasing, more than two-thirds (68%) of respondents said they will or are likely to increase contributions this year. According to Ortec Finance, of the...

December 19, 2024
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06Dec

Household Saving in Japan: The Past, Present, and Future

By Charles Yuji Horioka This paper explores the determinants of the level of, and trends over time in, Japan’s household saving rate, with emphasis on the impact of the age structure of the population, and makes projections about future trends therein. The paper finds that Japan’s household saving rate has not always been high either absolutely or relative to other countries and that it was only during the 1961-86 period that it exceeded 15%. Past and future trends in Japan’s...

December 6, 2024
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04Dec

US. Gen X investors ‘sandwiched’ between caregiving responsibilities and preparing for retirement

Retirement is right around the corner for some Gen X investors, but are members of the “sandwich generation” – tasked with caring for both children and aging family members – prepared? According to a new survey from Nationwide, one in five are unable to save for retirement, and 23% have reduced or stopped making retirement contributions entirely. What’s more, one in six are withdrawing from retirement accounts or investments to manage the financial pressures of caring for both their parents...

December 4, 2024
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November 2024
25Nov

Pensions reform is vital to raise the UK’s dismal savings rate

No area of policymaking suffers more from “muddling through” than pensions. Pension arrangements shape national prosperity and individual security over multiple generations. “Long-termism” is the only sane approach. Yet what the UK has done is, alas, the opposite. As I noted in a column published in June 2023, this short-sightedness ended up by putting people working in the private sector into one of two “corners”. In one corner are defined benefit schemes, which offer guaranteed pensions, with investment and longevity...

November 25, 2024
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11Nov

Gen X slip between DB and DC pension cracks

The tail-off in defined benefit (DB) pension provision around the millennium and a lack of compulsion around defined contribution (DC) saving until 2012 has had a lasting impact according to Standard Life’s Retirement Voice report. • Majority of Gen X (54%) are worried their finances won’t cover their retirement – compared to 31% among Baby Boomers • 45% Gen X expect their living standard to be worse in retirement compared to 29% of Millennials • Gen X most likely...

November 11, 2024
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08Nov

Journal of Labor Economics

By Peter Kuhn This is volume 42 issue 4 of Journal of Labor Economics. Founded in 1983 as the first journal devoted specifically to labor economics, the Journal of Labor Economics (JOLE) presents international research on issues affecting social and private behavior, and the economy. JOLE’s contributors investigate various aspects of labor economics, including supply and demand of labor services, personnel economics, distribution of income, unions and collective bargaining, applied and policy issues in labor economics, and labor markets and...

November 8, 2024
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07Nov

US. Employers offering better retirement plan benefits — Willis Towers Watson

Employers are becoming more generous with their retirement plan benefits, according to Willis Towers Watson’s 2024 U.S. Defined Contribution Survey. While the median employer contribution to defined contribution plans remained at 7.1% of pay, the gap in overall retirement benefits offered by the most and least generous employers narrowed significantly between 2000 and 2020, the survey found. In 2020, the most generous employers — those in the 90th percentile — provided retirement benefits that were 10.9% of pay, whereas the least...

November 7, 2024
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04Nov

US. IRS Announces 2025 Retirement Account Contributions Limits

On November 1, 2024, the Internal Revenue Service released the 2025 retirement plan contribution limits and other key numbers for investment accounts. While contribution limits for employer sponsored plans like the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) are increasing in 2025, IRA contributions will remain the same as 2024. The increasingly popular tax-free Health Savings Account contribution limits are also increasing in 2025. For the first time, TSP participants turning age 60, 61, 62, or 63 in 2025 will be able...

November 4, 2024
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