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Retirement Living TV will premiere television's longest-running gardening
program, The Victory Garden, on August 3, at 11 a.m. EDT. With a 30-year
history, The Victory Garden continues to equip viewers with the tools,
tips, confidence, and inspiration to explore the "fruits" of nature. The program
also showcases scenic gardens and landscapes across the country.
Congress has declared October
18 through October 24, 2009, "National Save for Retirement Week."
Momentum is building in
Congress to require expanded 401(k) disclosures that could be of particular
benefit to small-business owners and their employees. Under legislation approved
by the House Education and Labor Committee in June, employees in 401(k) plans
would get a more specific breakdown about how much they pay in fees on their
quarterly statements.
Other changes could assist
employers when they are choosing among retirement-plan providers. The bill would
require 401(k) plan providers or administrators to thoroughly disclose, before a
contract is signed, the investment-management, administrative, transaction and
various other fees that employers and employees would pay in estimated total
dollar amounts. The legislation would also require providers to reveal any
financial relationships they have with investment advisers and others who market
the plans to business owners.
Many large providers of
401(k)s for small businesses don't give their customers a detailed breakdown of
the estimated annual costs and where the fees go, making it difficult for
employers to comparison shop. In some cases, the plan providers give a total
dollar amount or the expense ratios of various investments in the plan, but not
a complete breakdown of the various fees, such as the commissions brokers
receive.
15% Drop in
Median Assets
Median asset levels in defined
contribution (401(k)) and IRA/Keogh plans dropped at least 15% from year-end
2007 to mid-June 2009 according to an analysis of Federal Reserve data published
today by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
Congress is deliberating over
a Savings Recovery Act to help Americans rebuild their retirement, college, and
personal savings.
The bill will raise the amount
Americans can put into their retirement savings and the amount of "catch-up"
contributions they can make, which will help Americans restore their retirement
savings.
I would also extend the SAVERs
Credit to contributions made to 529 college savings accounts as well,
effectively reducing by up to half the cost of a family's contribution to the
plan.
Similarly, it will increase
retirement income by reducing the social security earnings penalty. The Savings
Recovery Act would double the Social Security earnings limit from $14,160 to
$28,320 and allow more Americans to increase their income without being hit by
the earnings penalty.
To help stem the loss of
investment value for investors and seniors, the Savings Recovery Act would
immediately suspend the capital gains tax on newly acquired assets for the next
two years and would raise and index to inflation the amount of capital losses
allowed against ordinary income to $10,000.
The bill would
also suspend taxes on dividend income through 2011. |
The National Institute on
Retirement Security (NIRS) has conducted a study that shows defined benefit
plans play a critical role in reducing the risk of poverty and hardship among
older Americans. The NIRS report “The Pension Factor: Assessing the Role of
Defined Benefit Plans in Reducing Elder Hardships” demonstrates that pension
income among Americans in 2006 helped avoid nearly $7.3 billion in public
assistance expenditures and kept 4.7 million households out of poverty or near
poverty.
The Canadian Government has
made it easier for government workers with defined-benefit (DB) pension plans to
collect partial pensions while also continuing to work three or four days a week
or even to collect a partial pension on top of a full-time job
All Aboard, Canada?
The finance ministers of
Canada’s provinces have agreed to review the country's retirement system to look
at all options to improve incomes of retirees. They have endorsed a compromise
that bridges a gap among provinces that want to set up a new national pension
plan for workers and those so far unwilling to endorse the proposal.
Ministers from British
Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario and Nova Scotia met in Vancouver and agreed
to immediately launch a formal review to come up with a national solution to
improve retirement incomes. Representatives from the other five provinces, as
well as two of the three territories, participated in the meeting by telephone
and also supported the review.
A small Winter Park, Florida,
law firm that specializes in helping police and firefighters with pension and
Social Security entitlement claims is in trouble for allegedly mishandling the
retirement savings of if its own employees.
The U.S. Department of Labor
sued Bichler & Kelley for violating the Employee Retirement Income Security Act
of 1974 by withholding employee payments from the firm's individual retirement
plan. The Simple IRA plan allows employees to contribute a portion of their
income into an individual retirement account through a payroll deduction, with
the firm matching up to 3% of their compensation.
The suit filed last week in
Orlando alleges the firm withheld employee contributions into the plan on about
100 occasions from January 2005 to November 2007 and used that money for firm
purposes.
The city of Montreal now
boasts a 25-floor Manoir Laval, the tallest retirement home in the province of
Quebec. In the 20 months since Manoir Laval opened, occupancy rates have risen
to 98%.
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