August 2022

US. Working in Retirement? Here’s Why It’s Great — and Why It’s Really Not

Retirement can mean different things to different people. For some, it's the time to travel the world and do the things they've always wanted but never had the chance to do. For others, it's the time to do absolutely nothing after working for decades. And for other people, it could mean continuing to work, just at their own discretion. There are no rules about the right way to retire. So if you somehow find yourself working during retirement, it's not...

Coca-Cola Consolidated to terminate primary U.S. pension plan

Coca-Cola Consolidated Inc., Charlotte, N.C., plans to terminate its primary U.S. pension plan. The consolidated bottling company said it began the process of terminating the plan during the first half of 2022, according to its 10-Q filing with the SEC on Tuesday. Read also CF Industries offloads $375 million in U.S. pension liabilities In the filing, the company said it plans to offer a lump sum to "certain plan participants" before completing the purchase of a group annuity contract from an insurance...

U.S. corporate pension plan funding holds steady in July above 93% – 3 reports

U.S. corporate pension plan funding ratios remained relatively stable in July after months of poor investment returns had negatively affected the health of the plans, according to three new reports. Legal & General Investment Management America in its report estimated the average funding ratio of the typical U.S. corporate pension plan rose to 95% as of July 31 from 94% a month earlier. LGIMA in its latest Pension Solutions Monitor cited positive equity returns during the month, noting the S&P 500...

US. Average Public Pension Assumed Rate of Return Hits 40-Year Low

The average investment return rate assumption for U.S. public pension funds has fallen below 7.0%, to its lowest level in more than 40 years, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. Among the 131 funds that NASRA measured, more than half have reduced their investment return assumption since fiscal year 2020 as rising interest rates and other factors have contributed to more volatile investment returns. For the 30‐year period that ended in 2020, public pension funds accrued approximately $8.5...

U.S. 6-month period brings financial storm for many

Defined contribution money managers, like their plan sponsor clients and the millions of U.S. workers who save for retirement with them, are navigating a much different world in mid-2022 than they did at the end of 2021. "Certainly, these six months have been very different than last year and the year before, which is really quite a statement when you think that in the last two years we were in the middle of a pandemic," said Anne F. Ackerley, New...

July 2022

U.S. pension promises will go unmet without sweeping reform

This year, anybody receiving an annual statement from America’s mighty social security system might notice a tiny ticking time bomb — if they possess sharp eyes. Tucked into a footnote is a website link that explains that the two funds in this system — called “Disability Insurance” and “Old Age and Survivors Insurance” — have $2.9tn to plug the shortfall between expected payouts and what is gathered each year from payroll taxes. Those trillions sound soothingly big. But they are...

The 2022 BlackRock Read on Retirement

By BlackRock Retirement savings isn’t always an even playing field, but as an industry we can seek better outcomes. That’s why we’ve reimagined our DC Pulse survey to provide a more accurate “Read on Retirement” and what it means for more and more people. The pandemic caused people to rethink what they need for retirement, and inspired employers to offer more strategies to help employees save for the short and long-term. Yet not everyone has access to a workplace plan, and...

Wait Your Turn: Pension Incentives, Workplace Rules and Labor Supply Among Philadelphia Municipal Workers

By David McCarthy & Po Lin Wang Little academic work has examined the labor supply response to pension incentives at the intensive margin. We explore this issue using individual-level administrative and pension data for Philadelphia city employees, where workers have some choice about whether or not to perform overtime, which is pensionable. We document large variation across workers in the incentives to do overtime provided by pension rules. Although standard regressions show that worker overtime is positively associated with own...

U.S. House Votes to Restore Delphi Corp Salaried Pensions

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday voted 254-175 to pass legislation that would restore the pensions of 20,000 salaried retirees of Delphi Corp., of which more than 5,000 live in Ohio. It’s the brightest sign yet for those workers whose pensions were assumed by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. in 2009 when General Motors was steered through bankruptcy by the Obama Administration. The measure now moves to the U.S. Senate, which may take up the bill as early as today. Under...

US. Gen Z is stashing away 14% of income for retirement — more than older generations, study shows

Young adults may be hearing the save-for-retirement drumbeat loud and clear, a new study suggests. Generation Z workers — defined in the study as those ages 18 to 25 — are socking away, on average, 14% of income for their golden years, according to new research from BlackRock. That compares with 12% for their older counterparts: millennials (ages 26-42), Gen Xers (ages 43-55) and baby boomers (ages 56 to 75). At the same time, the total share of Americans who think...