October 2026

Rising Costs Are Affecting Retirement Savings

Consistent employment and regular saving have long been important foundations of retirement security, but many workers continue to face competing financial demands that can make it harder to save, according to survey results that Goldman Sachs Asset Management released last week. Many respondents are employed, contributing to retirement plans and doing what conventional wisdom tells them to do, yet housing, healthcare, education, caregiving and daily expenses are eating up a growing share of household resources, leaving them with less capacity...

Redistribution with Unequal Life Expectancy

By Sebastian Köhne I study life-expectancy inequality in a Mirrleesian life-cycle framework with pension-linked fiscal externalities and private retirement saving. Heterogeneous longevity affects optimal redistribution by changing both the expected fiscal cost of pension benefits and the mapping from disposable income into social marginal welfare. I derive an ABCD optimal tax formula that incorporates these efficiency and equity effects. Calibrated to the U.S. economy, the model implies that accounting for heterogeneous longevity lowers optimal marginal tax rates, particularly at the...

UK. Employee pension contributions jump to £3.2bn

Employee contributions into private sector defined contribution occupational pension schemes reached £3.2bn in the first quarter of 2026, according to ONS data. This figure represents an increase of around £600m from £2.6bn in Q1 of 2025. Employer contributions also increased significantly, rising from £6.2bn in Q1 2025 to £6.8bn in Q1 2026. Active membership of private sector DC schemes edged up by 30,000 over the same period to 11.5 million. Deferred membership of private sector DC schemes increased from 22.1 million...

September 2026

The ‘one thing worth doing this month’ if you’re near or in retirement, says the head of Ally Invest

National inflation has hovered above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target for the past five years. For retirement savers, this financial pressure has created a unique set of savings challenges, says Kunal Vaed, head of Ally Invest. One of the first steps? “It’s important to build a financial plan and revisit it regularly to dynamically adjust with the market. Many of our customers find it valuable to work with a financial adviser who can help craft their financial plan and make...

The world’s largest pension funds 2026

By Thinking Ahead Institute The Global Top 300 Pension Funds is Thinking Ahead Institute’s annual deep-dive into the world’s largest pension funds, produced with Pensions & Investments. For well over two decades, it has served as a rare longitudinal record of how these giants are evolving, and what that means for the industry at large. Get the report here    

Spain. The Social Security chains a surplus of 9.162 million until July thanks to the strong advance of contributions

The Social Security closed the first seven months of the year with a positive result of 9.162 billion euros, equivalent to 0.5% of GDP. This balance is obtained after total revenues of 154.231 billion euros, 7.8% more than a year earlier, against expenses of 145.069 billion, which increased by 7%, according to data released this Friday by the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration. Between January and July, the system obtained 109.913 billion euros in income from social contributions,...

How Europe can turn its investment gap into an opportunity

Past choices are visible in today’s balance sheets Household balance sheets reflect decades of saving and investment decisions, asset-price movements and institutional arrangements. In 2025, eurozone households held almost €220,000 in financial assets per household, including €69,000 in deposits, €56,000 in insurance and pension entitlements, €46,000 in unlisted equity and €43,000 in market-based assets. Average financial liabilities stood at €53,000. The level and composition of wealth differ markedly across countries. These differences reflect not only household investment choices, but also...

August 2026

Saving for Old Age

By Asli Demirgüç-Kunt, Leora F. Klapper & Georgios A. Panos Countries around the world face a retirement crisis brought on by aging populations, declining birthrates, and fiscal shortfalls. As a result, policy makers increasingly seek to understand retirement savings patterns, a crucial component of the safety net for the elderly. Drawing on the 2014 Global Findex database, which provides individual-level data on the use of financial products in more than 140 countries, this paper examines how adults save for old...

Ordinary Americans struggle to fund their 401(k) plans while plutocrats fill theirs with tax-free millions

For a half-century, Congress has been offering middle- and working-class Americans options for tax-advantaged individual retirement savings, largely to compensate for the disappearance of traditional pensions. But the transition from so-called defined benefit pensions to defined contribution accounts such as 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts hasn’t worked for millions of Americans. Roughly 40% of working Americans don’t have any retirement savings at all, and among those who do, their savings are too meager to support them through their retirement...

European Commission approves non-binding guidelines for supplementary retirement savings

Set out in Recommendation (EU) 2025/2384, approved in November 2025 as part of the Savings and Investment Union initiative led by Commissioner Maria Luís Albuquerque, these measures aim to boost future retirement income. However, under Article 288 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, these recommendations are non-binding; the decision on whether and how to implement them at the national level rests entirely with each Member State. Free national service A key proposal from Brussels is the creation of...