A Retirement Webinar

As Americans scramble for information to help get their retirement plans back on track and rebuild their personal savings, Prudential is offering a webinar, Conversations About Retirement: What Do I Do Now? It offers practical insights and tips from Prudential, AARP, and The Money Coach(TM). Available in both English and Spanish as replays and downloadable podcasts, it can be accessed by visiting http://www.news.prudential.com/ and clicking on the banner Conversations About Retirement.

Sessions focus on the Four Pillars of U.S. Retirement - Social Security, workplace retirement programs, personal savings, and retirement choices - in the current environment.

Canadians Delay Retirement

More than a quarter of Canadian baby boomers plan to delay retirement because of the economic downturn. The proportion is even higher among business owners, according to a survey.

According to a Royal Bank of Canada poll of workers between the ages 50 and 69, 28% of boomers had put off retirement because of the economy. The percentage among those owning a business came in at 37%.

Retirement Plan Sponsors of the Year

PLANSPONSOR, a leading retirement plan magazine, has announced the 2009 finalists for its annual Plan Sponsor of the Year awards, across four distinct workplace segments. They are:

    Corporate Sector

    Boeing--Chicago, Illinois

    CBS--New York, New York

    Genzyme Corporation--Cambridge, Massachusetts

    The Kroger Company--Cincinnati, Ohio

    Nationwide--Columbus, Ohio

    Wal-Mart--Bentonville, Arkansas

    State Government

    Kentucky Public Employees' Deferred Compensation Authority

    Oregon Savings Growth Plan

    State of West Virginia

    Municipal and Local Government

    City of Austin, Texas

    City of Los Angeles

    Parkland Health & Hospital System--Dallas, Texas

    Nonprofit/403(b)

    WellSpan Health--York, Pennsylvania

    The Church Pension Fund--New York, New York

According to Nevin E. Adams, Editor-in-Chief of PLANSPONSOR, "Each of the finalists has demonstrated admirable leadership during this especially critical period." He noted that on a longer-term basis, the finalists also deserve recognition for making a consistent and thoughtful commitment to workers and their retirement security

Congress to Consider 401(k) Overhaul

Retirement experts, seeking an overhaul of 401(k) savings programs, suggest that Congress restructure the U.S. pension system, according to testimony prepared for an upcoming hearing before the House Education and Labor Committee.

Among those attesting to the inadequacy of current 401(k) plans is Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif. "While 401(k)s are a fact of life, this committee has found that these plans in their current form do not and will not provide sufficient retirement security for the vast majority of Americans," Miller said in prepared speech.

The Committee's upcoming hearing is slated to address how pension managers, lawmakers, and fiduciaries can improve the nation's retirement system, which buckled after the economic crisis shed trillions of dollars from workers' defined-contribution, or 401(k)-type, accounts.

The current 401(k)-type system is less than three decades old.

401(k) Balances Falling

Average balances of defined-contribution accounts fell by 27% in 2008,

Revamping Retirement Plans

More than half of affluent sixty-year-olds are revamping their retirement plans, double the number who reported making changes a year ago, according to the fourth annual national survey by Bell Investment Advisors. Of those who have changed their retirement plans in the last six months, two out of three are delaying their retirement. Thirty-four percent 34% of these plan to work an additional five or more years. Almost 75% have reduced spending, and nearly half have changed their investments.

Near-Retirees Taking Too Much Risk?

Millions of Americans on the verge of retirement have taken risky bets with their life savings. According to Jack VanDerhei, Research Director for the Employee Benefits Research Institute, in 2007, one in five retirement plan participants between the ages of fifty-six and sixty-five had more than 90% of their portfolios invested in risky equities while two in five had more than 70% in equities.

"It's probably not too surprising why we had so many people suffer significant investment losses," VanDerhei comments. "How long will it take investors to make back what they lost?"

Retirement Tumbling in Nebraska

The State of Nebraska suffered a $2 billion loss in state retirement plans for school employees, teachers, and troopers in 2008. The loss represents 27.8% of the value of the plans, according to a report to the Nebraska Investment Council.

Most of the loss occurred during the fourth quarter, when the stock market plunged. It does not threaten payment of benefits to retirees.

The National Importance of Retirement Assets

Americans held $15.9 trillion in retirement assets at the end of the third quarter of 2008, which represents 35% of all household financial assets in the United States, according to the Investment Company Institute.

Top Five Total Rewards Priorities

Deloitte Consulting has identified employers’ Top Five Total Rewards Priorities for 2009. At the top of the list is the containment of health care costs. Rounding out the Top Five are managing talent, cost control, maintaining business brand, and accommodating the varying needs and interests of different generations.