Squared Away Blog

Unlike the United States, the United Kingdom has implemented bold reforms to its retirement system over the past decade. Two of the biggest changes were gradual increases in the minimum age for collecting a pension under the national social security program and requiring private employers to automatically enroll their workers in an employee savings plan. The goals of the reforms were to keep government spending in check and encourage individuals – who are living longer – to work longer, while helping them build up more private savings through employer-based plans. On balance, the notion is that workers will end up better prepared financially when they retire. Time will tell how successful these reforms will ultimately be. But, so far, t…

The following statistic will sound familiar since I use it regularly: about half of U.S. workers are not saving enough and may see their standard of living drop when they retire. A major culprit in this poor state of preparedness is that millions of Americans at any given moment don’t have a traditional pension or 401(k) savings plan at work. A new study takes a close look at who these people are and shows stark differences along racial lines. A large majority of Hispanic workers in the private sector – two out of every three – do not have access to a pension or 401(k)-style plan, and more than half of Black workers do not have access. Although the numbers…

In a divorce, splitting up the pension is trickier than dividing the house. Divorcing couples and their advisers “who aren’t hip to divorce splitting of retirement plan assets often do it improperly,” said Howard Phillips, a Delray Beach, Florida, actuary and author of “Dividing Retirement Plan Assets in a Divorce.”  He knows, because he values pensions for couples negotiating their divorce settlements and then drafts the order that will be entered into the court. Dividing a house is easy.  Two realtors pouring over sales of comparable nearby properties can readily agree on a value – once the house is sold, the parties pay the realtor and split the proceeds.  But a pension plan’s value greatly depends on how and when…

It’s difficult to envision what life will look like on the other side of the consequential decision to retire. But research can help demystify what lies ahead – about the decision itself, the financial challenges, and even the taxes. Readers understand this, as evidenced by the most popular blog posts in the first three months of the year. Here are the highlights: The retirement decision. The article, “Retirement Ages Geared to Life Expectancy,” attracted the most reader traffic. Myriad considerations go into a decision to retire. But a sense of whether one might live a long time – because of good health or simply seeing that parents or neighbors are living unusually long – is a compelling reason to postpon…

Some of the workers and retirees around the country who count on having a government pension surely get nervous when they see headlines about the most troubled state and local plans – in places like Illinois, New Jersey, Connecticut, Chicago, and Detroit. A broader perspective on retirement benefits, however, shows that the results are more mixed.  A study by the Center for Retirement Research, which sponsors this blog, estimated long-term costs for pensions, retiree health benefits, and general debt service as a share of revenues for the 50 states, 178 counties, and 173 cities. The findings are summarized below: States: Many states’ combined costs – pensions, other post-employment benefits (OPEBS) such as health insurance, and payments on all government bonds…

The conventional wisdom for older workers heading into retirement is that owning a house is a good thing. The property has no doubt appreciated over many years, adding to their wealth.  But new research finds that homeowners often strain to a pay a mortgage that is larger than what they can realistically afford. The essence of the problem for retirees, who usually rely on savings to help with living expenses, is that many do not have enough to make their monthly payments comfortably. This problem has become more pressing over the years. Half of the retired homeowners who were born in the early years of the baby boom wave are still making mortgage payments. They are in a very different…

Policymakers often worry that increasing government pension benefits won’t necessarily help retirees, if the reforms cause workers to change their behavior in ways that counteract them.  For example, some workers might save less if they know pension benefits are rising, offsetting the income boost they’ll get from a larger pension. However, researchers examining Canada’s pension reform over five decades confirm that they have materially improved the financial well-being of retirees there. To reach this conclusion, Kevin Milligan of the Vancouver School of Economics and David Wise of Harvard University tracked the financial status of older Canadians from 1960 through 2010.  They analyzed some 100,000 families between 55 and 80 years old using Canada’s Survey of Consumer Finances, the Survey of…

Baby boomers have a lot more debt than their parents did. By all accounts, the parents were in pretty good shape for retirement because they held their debt levels down to a mere 4 percent of their total assets in the years immediately before retiring – ages 56 to 61 – according to a new study. At those same ages, the typical baby boomers’ debt has ranged from 19 percent to 23 percent of their assets, thanks in large part to the 2008 drop in stock portfolios and in the housing market. Generational trends in debt levels are difficult to analyze, and the issue is far from settled among researchers. This study notes, for example, that the situation might not…

This blog is for a part-time Macy’s saleswoman and immigrant whom I met in a hospital waiting room – she’d never heard of Social Security. It is also for a 22-year-old contingent worker I know who lacks steady employment and isn’t regularly accruing credit toward the Social Security pension he will probably need when he retires. And it is for a 62-year-old eager to claim his benefit right away, possibly short-changing his retirement. A substantial share of retirees would fall into poverty were it not for the Social Security program passed during the Great Depression.  It’s especially important for two groups of people to understand how Social Security calculates their pension benefits: young adults making employment decisions that will impact…

A small group of researchers at the Center for Retirement Research, which sponsors this blog, produces a large volume of analysis of the nation’s state and local government pension funds. Their work isn’t typical of the personal finance information that appears in this blog. But it turns a bright light on the financial condition of the pension funds that millions of state and local government workers and retirees rely on. The bottom line, according to these studies, is that while some funds are in poor condition, many more are managing. The following are short descriptions of the Center’s recent reports, with links to the full reports: The big picture is updated in the new brief, “The Funding of State and…

West Virginia teachers started the wave of strikes over pay. Photo courtesy of Janet Bass, American Federation of Teachers Teachers’ strikes and walkouts over inadequate pay – in Arizona, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and West Virginia – are making news this spring. In Oklahoma, half the people who’ve left teaching recently said pay was their top reason for moving on. A wave of reductions in another significant form of compensation – pensions – also appear to be making state and local governments a less appealing place to work, according to researchers Laura Quinby, Geoffrey Sanzenbacher, and Jean-Pierre Aubry at the Center for Retirement Research, which publishes this blog. Pensions have traditionally been the great equalizer for governments trying to recruit…

Retirement inequality is a thread running through several articles that have appeared here this year. One blog that was particularly popular with our readers distinguishes retirees who have enough wealth to maintain the same spending levels throughout retirement from those who will, over time, have to cut back and reduce their standard of living. The research behind the article – “Health and Wealth Drive Retirees’ Spending” – makes clear that wealth is just one component of a satisfying lifestyle. Even retirees who can afford to maintain their living standard may not be healthy enough to enjoy their money to the fullest. The retirees who have both – health and wealth – are best equipped to maintain their pre-retirement lifestyle. Homeowners…