May 2019

10May

Retirement Choices by State and Local Public Sector Employees: The Role of Eligibility and Financial Incentives

Por Leslie E. Papke I analyze the effects of state public pension parameters on the retirement of public employees. Using a panel data set of public sector workers from 12 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, I model the probability of retirement as a function of pension wealth at early and normal retirement eligibility and Social Security coverage in the public sector job. I find that becoming eligible for early retirement, or receiving an early-out offer, significantly increases the...

May 10, 2019
Articles, Pension design,
Read more...
10May

US. Retirement Savings Will Suffer When The Current Debt Bubble Bursts

People with a lot of debt keep borrowing more, aided by lower interest rates and increasingly by lenders simply ignoring prudent rules. Those lenders can then bundle the loans and sell them to investors, who may not fully understand the large financial risks that they take on. This may sound like 2007, but this is happening in 2019. The only difference is that this time it’s companies loading up on debt, not households. The phenomenon is called leveraged lending,...

May 10, 2019
News, Slider,
Read more...
09May

Americans are saving more for retirement, but it may not be enough

The good news: Americans are saving more than they ever have for retirement. The bad news: They’ll probably need to save even more. Employees contributed an average of $2,370 per account to their 401(k) plans in the first quarter of 2019, a record level and 15% more than one year prior, according to Fidelity Investments, the Boston-based financial services firm that also manages retirement accounts. Employers also hit a record high with their own contributions to employee plans, partly...

May 9, 2019
News, Slider,
Read more...
07May

Higher Risk Not Translating to Similar Returns for U.S. Pensions

U.S. state and local pensions have taken on riskier asset allocations in recent years, though the rate of return is paling compared with the higher risk according to Fitch Ratings in a new report. State and local pension plans have steadily increased their allocations to equities and alternatives such as real estate, private equity, hedge funds and commodities over the last several years. Asset allocation to both equities and alternative investments rose to 77% in 2017 from 67% in...

May 7, 2019
News, Slider,
Read more...
06May

Pre-Retirement Market Volatility Looks Very Different In Retirement

There’s plenty for investors to worry about when their financial livelihood is on the line. When planning for major financial decisions such as retirement, individuals often focus on the severity of a market downturn, underestimating the impact that timing and cash flows can have on their portfolio. The sequence of returns risk is the impact the order of investment returns can have on your portfolio. As individuals move from the asset accumulation stage of their life to withdrawing assets...

May 6, 2019
News, Slider,
Read more...
02May

US. Bill Would Deny U.S. Pensions to Convicted Child Molesters

A U.S. senator is seeking to ban convicted child molesters from receiving government pensions after a U.S. Indian Health Service doctor was revealed to be drawing a six-figure retirement income following his conviction for sexually abusing patients. The Wall Street Journal and the PBS series Frontline reported in March that the doctor, longtime Indian Health Service pediatrician Stanley Patrick Weber, stood to get more than $1.8 million in U.S. pension payments during his prison sentence, which began in September....

May 2, 2019
News, Slider,
Read more...

April 2019

29Apr

Millions of Americans are working past 65, and it’s not because they can’t afford to retire

More retirement-age Americans, mostly baby boomers, are working today than ever before, but it's not because they need the money. The largest increase in people working past 65 has been among those in the best shape for retirement: highly educated people with high incomes, says Lincoln Plews, a research analyst at United Income. The biggest reason for working longer? They're healthier than they've ever been. Not all baby boomers are itching to retire. The greatest share of older Americans...

April 29, 2019
News, Slider,
Read more...
29Apr

Understanding Job Transitions and Retirement Expectations Using Stated Preferences for Job Characteristics

By Nicole Maestas (Harvard Medical School - Department of Health Care Policy), Kathleen J. Mullen (RAND Corporation), David Powell (RAND Corporation), Till Von Wachter (University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - Department of Economics), Jeffrey B. Wenger (RAND Corporation; American University - School of Public Affairs) As the population ages in the United States and other countries, encouraging older individuals to work would help counter increasing dependency ratios and improve national economic outcomes. Extending working lives is likely not simply...

April 29, 2019
Aging, Articles, Labor Market,
Read more...
26Apr

Morgan Stanley to pay $130 million to California pensions over bad investments

One of the world’s largest investment banks has agreed to put $130 million into the nation’s biggest public pension system to settle accusations it knowingly sold bad investments that caused the retirement fund for millions of workers to lose money. California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra announced the settlement with Morgan Stanley on Thursday. The bank is to pay $150 million. Of that, $122 million will go to the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, known as CalPERS, and $8 million...

April 26, 2019
News, Slider,
Read more...
25Apr

Are Americans overly confident about retirement?

Americans are more optimistic than they’ve been in years about life in retirement. Yet one question remains: Will they have enough money? According to a new study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, confidence among U.S. workers has rebounded to pre-recession levels, with 67% saying they are very or somewhat confident they’ll be able to live comfortably throughout retirement. And, among those already out of the workforce, 82% are confident they will have enough money to live comfortably in retirement,...

April 25, 2019
News, Slider,
Read more...