Retirement benefits

The clock is ticking for the onset of an incredibly far-reaching new fiduciary rule. Here’s who it helps — and hurts.

New reporting requirements allow the feds to focus on hard-to-value holdings in order to boost taxable required minimum distributions.

An absence of pensions has prompted older workers to increase their working hours and stay longer in the workplace, a recent study finds; plus, how your clients can plan for retirement in their 50s.

One retirement plan advisory firm's digital approach offers product providers a lesson on how to overcome the client education gap and reinvigorate the learning process.

Fidelity needn’t settle for another me-too lineup of smart beta ETFs.

Advisors managing assets within retirement plan vehicles, including IRAs, will need to take a hard look at their own pricing and practices, because simply disclosing conflicts of interest is no longer good enough under the new rule.

Out of about 76 million baby boomers in the United States, approximately 35 million of them lack any retirement savings and that statistic appears to be getting worse.

DoL regulators say they allowed for annuities and nontraded REITs in retirement accounts because they wanted to avoid the risk of clients taking heavy losses by exiting certain investments precipitously.

The Labor Department finalized an amended version of its fiduciary rule, providing wealth management firms a lengthier timeline for implementation as well as more relaxed requirements for the best interest contract exemption.

Forty-four percent of parents said they had used retirement savings to fund non-emergencies in the past two years.

Many investment products are still designed with men's needs in mind, despite studies that show women are more active in saving for retirement.

TIAA-CREF rebranded itself last month, renaming itself TIAA and launching a redesigned website, TIAA.org.

"In the small plan market, we try to bubble wrap the plan sponsor from fiduciary issues," says John Hancock Retirement Plan Services CEO Peter Gordon.

More sophisticated mobile apps and better industry partnerships are being credited with easing access to 401(k) plan information and paving the way for wiser retirement planning decisions.

Earlier this year BlackRock, the largest asset manager in the world, announced that it would follow Fidelity and Federated in making changes to its money market fund offerings.

In certain circumstances, a Roth IRA conversion can incur an immediate tax liability – but, fortunately, the decision to a conversion doesn't have to be all or none. A partial Roth conversion is not only permissible – in practice it's often the optimal strategy.

In 2015, lower-paid plan participants contributed an average of 5.8% of their salary into their 401(k) plan, while higher-paid participants contributed an average of 6.9% of their salary to their workplace retirement plan.

The funded status of the nation’s largest corporate defined benefit plans ended just as it did in 2014, due in large part to a rise in interest rates that were offset by a weak global stock market.

With people preoccupied with planning a get-together or last-minute shopping, 401(k) communications during the busy holiday season might get lost in the shuffle.

Plan sponsors need to be aware of what will happen to 401(k) plan loans now that rates have gone up.