The LPL Financial Retirement Partners Tool Suite consists of
tools and resources that plan advisers can use to manage and drive growth in
their businesses.
As part of this collection of tools, LPL Financial is releasing a Lineup Comparison Tool available as an additional module. The tool
allows advisers to compare performance and expense information for up to five
retirement plan lineup options in side-by-side format.The reports come in a presentation format,
allowing both advisers and plan sponsors to identify the strengths and
weaknesses of fund options.
The entire Tool Suite includes technology, functionality,
training and support that plan advisers need to serve plan sponsors, from
conducting plan provider and investment manager searches, to monitoring
fiduciary responsibility.
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Employment-Based Plan Participation Steady in 2010
The portion of full-time workers ages 21‒64 who
participated in an employment-based retirement plan remained stable at
54.5% in 2010, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).
This makes 2010 the second year in the last six years without a decrease in participation, EBRI said.
In general, workers in Midwestern, Mid-Atlantic, and
Northeastern states had the highest levels of participation in
employment-based retirement plans, while those in Southern and Western
states had the lowest levels.
Among all 152.6 million Americans who worked in 2010 (including
part-time workers), 75 million worked for an employer or union that
sponsored a retirement plan and 60.7 million participated in the plan.
This translates into a sponsorship rate (the percentage of workers
working for an employer or union that sponsored a plan) of 49.2% and a
participation level of 39.8%. Phrased another way, slightly less than
half of all workers were offered a retirement plan, and roughly 40% participated in one.
Among wage and salary workers ages 21-64, the sponsorship rate
increased to 61.6% and the portion participating increased to 54.5%.
Public-sector workers are far more likely than their counterparts in
the private sector to be in a retirement plan. About 72%
of public-sector wage and salary workers ages 21-64 participated in an employment-based retirement plan, compared with 39.5% of private-sector workers.
“Retirement plan participation by workers is strongly tied to
macroeconomic factors such as stock market returns and the labor
market,” said Craig Copeland of EBRI, author of the report. “Better conditions of the late 1990s resulted in higher levels
of participation, while worse conditions of the 2000s led to lower
levels of participation. The economic crisis of 2008 and 2009 clearly
had an impact on the most recent participation data.”
The
percentage of wage and salary workers ages 21–64 participating in a
retirement plan in 2010 increased with age. For those ages 21–24, 17.2%
participated in a plan, compared with 53.5% of those ages 55–64.
Hispanic employees were significantly less likely than
both white and black employees to participate in a retirement plan. The
gap between the percentages of black and white plan participants narrows
when compared across earnings levels, with blacks surpassing whites at
incomes of $75,000 or more. In contrast, the gap between Hispanics and
whites persisted across all earnings groups, although it showed some
narrowing in the higher earnings groups.
Among workers without a
high school diploma, 17% participated in a retirement plan, compared
with 65.8% for those with a graduate or professional degree.
The states with the lowest levels of participation were Florida, Nevada,
Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Georgia. States with the highest participation rates were West Virginia and North Dakota.
More findings from the EBRI report, "Employment-Based Retirement Plan Participation: Geographic Differences and Trends, 2010,” are available at http://www.ebri.org.