March 2026

US issues draft rules on private assets in 401k plans

The U.S. Department of Labor on Monday issued long-awaited proposed new rules intended to clarify how trustees can add alternative assets ranging from private ​equity to cryptocurrencies to 401(k) retirement plans. The measure, which is intended to ‌ease long-standing barriers to incorporating these less liquid assets in American retirement nest eggs, follows an executive order by President Donald Trump last summer and could clear the way for alternative ​asset management firms to tap a large and potentially lucrative new source ​of capital. Shares...

US. Private-Credit Wobbles Could Prove Perilous for Trump

At a meeting of the Financial Stability Oversight Council this month, Trump administration officials moved ahead with plans to scale back scrutiny of hedge funds, encouraged financial firms to experiment with artificial intelligence and lamented the burden of onerous regulation. What wasn’t discussed during the public session was the segment of the financial system that has Washington and Wall Street most on edge: private credit. The once-booming corner of lending markets has been showing signs of shakiness recently, raising alarm...

US. How to Recession-Proof Your Retirement Income Before 2026 Ends

Will a recession hit in 2026? At this point, that's anyone's guess. But between the oversees conflict, tariff policies, and general uncertainty, it's easy to see why some people may be worried about the economy taking a serious turn for the worse. Recessions can hit workers harder than retirees because they often lead to an uptick in lost jobs. If you're retired and aren't working, you at least don't have to worry about losing your job. And even if you're working...

The surprising reason people in the US are working longer than they used to

Older workers today have more wealth than previous generations but are afraid to use it Workers covered primarily by traditional pensions that paid them a monthly check for life retired at an average age of 62, while those relying on 401(k)-style plans retired closer to 66, a new study found. In the good old days, when my father retired, he had a traditional pension that paid him a monthly check for life. He never had to wonder whether he would outlive...

Longevity wake-up call for younger generations

New study shows Gen X and Millennials face rising mortality rates, signaling an urgent need for longevity-focused solutions. For decades, Americans have been living longer, but recent trends suggest that this upward march may be stalling, and for some generations, it’s moving in reverse. A new study tracking cause-of-death data from 1979 to 2023 highlights a worrying pattern: people born between 1970 and 1985 – late Gen Xers and early Millennials – are experiencing higher mortality rates than the generations...

US. Retirement Plan Coming Up Short? Here’s How to Buy Yourself More Time

On this episode of The Long View, Emily Guy Birken, author and retirement expert, discusses key steps for investors as they get closer to retirement, how Social Security can help with retirement shortfalls, and lessons from her latest book, The Five Years Before You Retire. Here are a few excerpts from Guy Birken’s conversation with Morningstar’s Christine Benz and Amy Arnott. How to Bridge a Retirement Shortfall Amy Arnott: What if you find yourself in a situation where you’re approaching retirement and it looks like you really won’t have enough to...

Employee Satisfaction and Pension Shortfall Risk

By Annita Florou, Meng Li, Peter F. Pope & Nipat Puangjampa Defined benefit (DB) pension plans are important to employee welfare. However, they carry risk as they are subject to minimum funding requirements. We examine the effect of a relaxation in pension funding rules on employee satisfaction by exploiting the adoption of the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21). We find that employees of DB firms are less satisfied with their firms and their senior managers, after...

Risks, returns and realism: Mapping the future of pension investment

By Nicolas Firzli and Nick Sherry  Former Australian pensions minister Nick Sherry and World Pensions Forum director M Nicolas J Firzli explain their new model for visualising the future of asset allocation as interest in private markets and productive finance increases. We are living in the Age of Geo-Economics – defined by the second Trump presidency, the accelerating Sino-American technological rivalry, and the weaponisation of trade, finance and central banking – shaping the Fifth Industrial Revolution – bringing us artificial intelligence, advanced...

US. How every state’s public pension system ranks

Reason Foundation’s 2025 Pension Solvency and Performance Report ranks every state’s pension system across five dimensions—funded status, investment performance, contribution adequacy, asset allocation risk, and the probability of meeting assumed returns—based on the latest fiscal year data from nearly every major plan in the country. The sections below summarize the strongest and weakest performers in each category. For each state, the results reflect the aggregate values of its major pension systems, including plans administered at both the state and local...

Why Social Security Is Essential to Measuring Wealth Inequality

By Knowledge at Wharton Staff In this Q&A, professor Sylvain Catherine discusses why including Social Security fundamentally changes how we measure wealth inequality. His paper “Social Security and Trends in Wealth Inequality” was co-authored by Max Miller and Natasha Sarin and recently won the Dimensional Fund Advisors First Prize from the American Finance Association. The paper was previously awarded the Marshall Blume Prize in Financial Research from Wharton’s Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research, given annually to the best...