Blogs, Newsletters and Webinars
Latest News
When Does One-Year Equal Nine Months (Or Less)?
We know that the CARES Act doubled retirement plan loan limits for qualified individuals eligible for a Corona-Virus Related Distribution (CRD) to be the lesser of $100,000 or 100 percent of the participant's vested account balance. To qualify, the loan must be made...
UPDATE ON CORONA VIRUS RETIREMENT RELATED LEGISLATION
David I Gensler, MSPA, MAAA, ASEA I thought that the most important thing that I could do with this month’s newsletter is to provide you with an update of any retirement related legislation as it moves through Congress. Though negotiations are not over, on March 22nd...
THE FACE OF RETIREMENT IS CHANGING – AND EMPLOYERS & ADVISORS NEED TO CHANGE WITH IT
David I Gensler, MSPA, MAAA, ASEA We’ve seen these images and advertisements so many times that we don’t pay much attention to them anymore. They are on the booklets that the recordkeeping providers give out at enrollment meetings. They flash across the TV screen as...
WHILE WE WERE SLEEPING — CONGRESS PASSES THE SETTING EACH COMMUNITY UP for RETIREMENT ENHANCEMENT (SECURE) ACT
Amidst all the strum and drang going on in Washington, little noticed by anyone other than pension geeks (like me), Congress passed the most sweeping retirement plan legislation in 13 years. It was signed into law by the President on December 20th. The SECURE act is...
THIS FIDUCIARY BREACH LAWSUIT HAS SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE – INCLUDING JEFFREY EPSTEIN
This lawsuit has something for everyone: a respected and revered institution (MIT), one of the leading providers of services to the retirement plan industry (Fidelity) and a prominent law firm in the field of fiduciary litigation (the firm of Schlichter Bogard &...
IT’S NOT EASY TO STEAL MONEY FROM A RETIREMENT PLAN – BUT IT DOES HAPPEN
David I Gensler, MSPA, MAAA, ACOPA, EA Two unrelated occurrences illustrate that while it is difficult to steal money from a retirement plan, it is certainly not impossible. TPA SCHEME FAILS From 2013 through 2017, some 300 workers at Ferguson Electric and...
THE THREAT OF ZOMBIES IS REAL!
David I Gensler, MSPA, MAAA, ACOPA, EA Consumer-debt that is years or even decades old is known as “zombie” debt in the debt buying industry and represents a growing cause of concern for consumers. Just like real life zombies (that is probably an oxymoron)...
MILLENNIALS ARE NOT SAVING FOR RETIREMENT BECAUSE… THE SKY IS FALLING?
David I Gensler, MSPA, MAAA, ACOPA, EA Well OK. Chicken Little notwithstanding, the sky is not actually falling. But for millennials, it might as well be. The barrage of depressing news coupled with the fact that the impact of climate change seems to be...
HOW TO STOP WASTING MONEY & SAVE MORE (OR START SAVING) FOR RETIREMENT
David I Gensler, MSPA, MAAA, ACOPA, EA Everyone would save more for retirement if they only had more disposable income. The Wall Street Journal recently sat down with a group of financial experts, one of whom is a Nobel prize-winning economist. Want to hear...
Baby Boomers in Student Debt?
ONE GENERATION OF AMERICANS OWES $86B IN STUDENT DEBT. ITS MEMBERS ARE ALL 60 YEARS OLD OR MORE
Seniors with student debt? Surely that is some sort of a mistake. No, it’s not. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) shined a light on a little known and growing problem. Seniors that have taken on student debt. Some took out loans to help pay for their children’s college tuition and while the child may be out of school for years, the debt remains. Others, in the wake of the most recent recession, took out student loans while trying to reinvent themselves. They needed new skills to make themselves more attractive to potential employers. Many of those dreams withered on the vine but again, the debt remains.
The Notorious ESG
Environmental, social and governance investing – better known as ESG to those in the know (by the way, I was one of those not in the know) is a hotly debated topic in the 401(k) world. Research from Cerulli Associates, which specializes in worldwide asset management and distribution analytics, found that 45% of investor households cited ESG factors as a preferred method of investing, with enthusiasm highest (surprise, surprise) among younger investors.
Americans Still Have High Hopes of Retiring Early (hope being the operative word) & Retirees Understanding of the Taxes that They Will Pay in Rerirement
Findings from MassMutual’s 2018 “State of the American Family” illustrates that on average, respondents expect to retire at age 62, as opposed to age 64 when the study was last conducted five years ago in 2013. Surprisingly, 40% of the respondents from the study intend to retire before age 60, up from 32% from that same 2013 study. With all of this optimism, did any of the percentages go down? Well yes, actually. 22% of respondents now expect to retire after age 65, down from 30% from the 2013 study. So there was a decrease in the percentage of folks who expect to retire after age 65 and an increase in the percentage of folks who expect to retire before 65.
Madison Pension Services is now known as Concierge Retirement Services.