The SECURE Act became law at the very end of 2019, ushering in major changes for the retirement planning industry, and experts are again asking whether the close of 2021 could bring similar progress.
Industry professionals who work with lawmakers in Washington say they remain hopeful that retirement security issues will be addressed in the federal government’s budget for fiscal year 2022.
Budget reconciliation legislation set for debate in Congress gives top billing to universal paid family and medical leave, but key retirement policies also stand out, including a broad mandate for employers to offer retirement plans.
More than eight in 10 say they want to be automatically enrolled into a plan at an early age, according to Principal, but only a third of employers are offering the feature.
As evidenced by Wednesday morning’s House Education and Labor Committee hearing, retirement security is a topic where strong bipartisan consensus is possible, even in an intensely divided Congress.
The markup hearing, punctuated by a unanimous vote to advance the legislation, demonstrated that retirement security issues are capable of bringing together members of Congress who don’t agree on much else.
The practice believes that since so many advisory firms are acquired by aggregators, the personal attention it offers clients will come to be viewed as a precious commodity.
In the past few years, her practice has grown its assets by nearly $1 billion a year.
Jason Chepenik says advisers need to continue to have the courage to try new ideas.
Despite the lack of in-person communication in 2020, the practice has gained a fair amount of new business by disseminating promotional videos.
What is particularly encouraging is that 37% of plans on T. Rowe Price’s platform automatically enroll their participants at a 6% or higher deferral rate.
“They are hiring advisers to understand how well their plan is functioning and how to improve it,” Jordan Burgess, with Fidelity Institutional Asset Management, tells PLANADVISER.
Plan sponsors that fully automate their plans are more likely than others to believe their workers are on the path towards a financially secure retirement, J.P. Morgan found.
At year-end 2018, 66% of new plan entrants were enrolled via automatic enrollment.
Fidelity analyzed the balances of those who remained invested in their 401(k) in the decade following the Great Recession of 2008 and found that the balances went from $52,600 to $297,700.
Recent research reports suggest average employee tenure in the U.S. has trended downward; retirement industry experts agree this fact should inform plan design discussions and participant-level services.
While the UK's requirement to automatically enroll all workers into a retirement plan showed a potential for a big boost in participation if the U.S. were to adopt a similar policy, finding about re-enrollment did not show a big boost.
The request regards information collection for Revenue Ruling 2000-35, which describes certain criteria that must be met before an employee's compensation can be reduced and contributed to an employee's section 403(b) plan in the absence of an affirmative election by the employee.
With participants not panicking in Q4 2018 and the longer term trends resulting from automatic plan features, Fidelity Investments finds an overall improvement in average participant savings and account balances.