The New Aging Enterprise - aarp

Policy Perspective. For increasing numbers of Americans, company pensions are
disappearing. According to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the total number of
private-sector pension plans fell by nearly half over the past decade. Today, only one in five
private-sector employees are covered by them. In 1980, among private sector workers with
pension coverage, 60% had a defined benefit plan only, while 17% had a defined contribution
plan only and 23% both. But by 2004, those proportions had shifted dramatically: 11% of
private-sector workers with pension coverage have a defined benefit plan only, 61% a defined
contribution plan only and 28% both. 64
With disappearing defined benefit plans, workers will need to rely more on personal
savings and manage their investments in an intelligent way. On the positive side, public policy
can take steps to expand access to worker retirement savings plans. A study by Hewitt
Associates showed that of the 2.6 million U.S. employees Hewitt analyzed, more than 90% of
workers participated in a 401(k) plan if their company automatically enrolled them, compared
with 68% for employees at companies without automatic enrollment. The increase, in short, is
dramatic. The Pension Protection Act of 2006 encourages companies to adopt automatic
enrollment. Public policy can be expanded further, for example, through federal Auto-IRA
legislation. Steps could also be taken to increase the incidence of defined contribution plans with
automatic enrollment and improve investing outcomes in those plans. For example, in a step to
improve 401(k) investment choices, some USA-plan sponsors are now offering “target maturity
date lifecycle funds,” which automatically place younger workers into higher-equity-share
portfolios and then rebalance their allocation over the life course. A recent study of such target
lifecycle funds concluded that such automatic enrollment can meaningfully change the pattern of
age-related equity exposure and improve overall performance. 65
Expanding access to retirement savings is not the end of the problem. Because of poor
oversight, lack of transparency, and limited competition, it turns out fees and other expenses eat
up a disproportionate share of investment earnings in workplace retirement savings plans. As a
result, most plans available do not even come close to the low fees charged by Vanguard, which,
after all, is only one out of 5,000 mutual funds available on the market. Legislation and
regulation are needed to ensure that more reasonable fees and expenses are charged. There also
needs to be more serious advocacy for the rights of defined contribution plan participants and
beneficiaries. Even if all these steps are taken, employees participating in well-regulated plans
typically put in only small amounts and do not manage their investments very well. To make
matters worse, more than half of participants cash out their investment when they change jobs.
Herein lies a major challenge for consumer financial education. Even enhanced participation in
401(k) plans will leave us with serious problems of saving for retirement. 66
Without more support from public policy, prospects for improved retirement savings in
years to come are not good. One bright spot emerged in the 2008 Presidential Campaign when a
proposal was made for so-called “American Retirement Accounts,” based on a 401(k) model.
There are similarities between this proposal and the new Swedish Pension Plan. Under this
proposal, Americans could set up retirement accounts either with diversified investment funds or
with a passive index fund. Workers earning up to $60,000 a year would receive a dollar-todollar
match, with a phase-out up to those earning $100,000. The plan could paid for by freezing,
rather than eliminating, the estate tax at its 2009 level.
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