July 2022
15Jul

The market meltdown threatening pensions for millions in the U.S.

American public pension funds are facing serious challenges that threaten the retirement plans for millions of US state and local government employees. Pension plans remained severely underfunded during the 11-year bull market that followed the Great Recession. The plunge toward insolvency and high-return markets led fund managers to take on risky bets in hope of staying afloat. Now, the recent selloff has left funds struggling to keep up with their future obligations. The 100 largest public pension funds in the United...

July 15, 2022
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14Jul

US. Biggest Investor Worries Are Inflation and Recession Risk

Top retirement income concerns for investors are inflation and recession anxiety, a new report reveals. The Alliance for Lifetime Income and CANNEX research from the “Protected Retirement Income and Planning Study” found that four out of five U.S. workers age 45 to 75 cited concerns that high inflation will reduce their spending power in retirement (81%) and that a recession will drive the economy downward and may reduce the amount of retirement income they can expect (79%). Retirement income anxiety is...

July 14, 2022
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13Jul

U.S. Seniors Worried About Inflation in Retirement

Four out of five Americans age 50+ say they are worried about inflation in retirement, according to a new survey from F&G. This feeling is even more acute among pre-retirees (84%) vs. 76% of retirees. The survey also revealed 71% of Americans are worried about a recession and 66% are worried about rising healthcare costs. The survey also found that Americans age 50+ are considering various approaches to mitigate their retirement worries likely due to the current economic climate. Sixty-two percent...

July 13, 2022
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08Jul

US. Study Finds Disconnect Between Actual and Perceived Retirement Risks

Retirees face many financial risks, such as outliving their money, investment losses and unexpected health expenses, but a new study finds that they may be overestimating some risks while underestimating others. In How Well Do Retirees Assess the Risks They Face in Retirement? by Wenliang Hou, a quantitative analyst at Fidelity Investments and former research economist at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, the study develops a lifecycle model of a typical retired household facing five categories of...

July 8, 2022
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07Jul

U.S. corporate pension plan funding continues to fall – reports

U.S. corporate defined benefit plan funding ratios continue to drop, primarily due to poor equity returns well offsetting declines in liability values, new reports show. A quarterly report from MetLife Investment Management shows the estimated average funding ratio of companies in Russell 3000 that sponsor defined benefit plans was 98.5% as of June 30, down from 102.5% as of March 31 Stephen Mullin, head of long duration and LDI strategies at MetLife, said in the report that each of the asset...

July 7, 2022
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06Jul

US. Biden to tout plan to protect millions of workers’ pensions

President Joe Biden will travel to Cleveland, Ohio, on Wednesday to announce a plan to prevent cuts to millions of workers' pensions. The launch of the program, created under the American Rescue Plan, comes as Biden's approval rating remains in the doldrums and consumer anxiety mounts over 40-year-high inflation. Under the final rule for the program, 2 to 3 million workers and retirees who faced pension cuts because of investment losses will get the benefits they were set to receive for...

July 6, 2022
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04Jul

US. Climate change knocking, but not all managers home

Some of the most in demand regions in the U.S. for real estate investment, most notably the Sun Belt, are also getting clobbered by the floods, extreme heat and other ravages of climate change — potentially impacting returns. It's a worldwide challenge that is threatening to chisel away at expected returns across real asset sectors, from housing and office to retail. Some real estate managers are starting to exit properties early or decline to invest in real estate with relative...

July 4, 2022
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01Jul

US. Milliman: Public pension plans’ funding dips slightly in May

The estimated funding ratio of the 100 largest public defined benefit plans in the U.S. inched down to 78.4% at the end of May from 78.6% at the end of April, according to the latest Milliman 100 Public Pension Funding index released Wednesday. The "relatively stagnant market" of May provided a "reprieve" for these plans after the volatility experienced between February and April this year, Milliman said in a news release. The funding ratio was as high as 85.5% at...

July 1, 2022
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June 2022
30Jun

DC 2.0: Three Paths To More Equitable Retirement Programs

Among C-suite and financial executives at both for-profit and nonprofit organizations, 99% are committed to helping employees save for retirement and 84% believe they have made significant progress toward achieving their organization’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals. That’s according to a December 2021 PNC Survey on institutional social responsibility. Despite these commitments, many employees remain underprepared for retirement. Specifically, low-income workers, women, and people of color tend to have significantly less access to retirement plans, and when these groups...

June 30, 2022
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29Jun

US. Social Security is valuable and needs attention sooner rather than later

This program has demonstrated its worth in tumultuous times The 2022 Social Security Trustees Report, which was prepared in February when the outlook for the economy looked less uncertain, shows a slight decrease in the program's 75-year deficit from 3.54% to 3.42% of taxable payroll (see Figure 1). The depletion date for the trust fund bounced back from 2034 to 2035. What does a deficit of 3.42% of taxable payrolls mean? That figure means that if payroll taxes were raised immediately...

June 29, 2022
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