Retirement planning

Prudential Retirement has launched a website dedicated to assisting plan sponsors and advisors help Americans put aside the money they’ll need for retirement and guarantee a sustainable source of income throughout its duration.

When it comes to saving for their retirements, more and more Americans admit they’re not saving enough -- or not earning enough -- to ensure they’ll have the cash they’ll need to ride out their golden years in style.

A new research study found that when people were shown age-progressed images of themselves depicting what they’d look like at 65, working-age adults were willing to allocate almost 33% more of their paychecks to their retirement accounts than those who didn't get a sneak peek at their future faces.

J.P. Morgan Asset Management is advocating a fundamentally different approach to defined contribution plans by stripping down offerings and complexities to a menu of just three choices: a diversified stock portfolio, a diversified bond portfolio and one offering diversified cash alternatives.

Fringe Benefit Administrators will keep its name under the Lincoln Trust umbrella, and expand the Denver firm’s presence in the Southeast.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan urged a special advisory council to dig deep as it crafts recommendations for improving Americans' financial literacy though education and training programs, arguing that personal finance should be integrated early into the curriculum as a core subject.

To simplify or not to simplify?

Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s new data on 401(k) plan sponsor clients and plan participants shows that new loan issuance transactions are at record lows, while hardship withdrawals and total distribution amounts are at record highs.

Advisors take note: It’s not a company’s size but rather the demographic makeup of its workforce that influences whether it sponsors a retirement plan.

Lincoln Financial Group has introduced Lincoln Alliance, a mutual fund retirement solution designed for small-to-mid-sized retirement plans with assets of $2 million or more.

Be they young or be they old, people across America are worried about their financial prospects in retirement and the economic direction of the nation, according to a survey of Gen X, Gen Y and Baby Boomers by The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America.

Seventy-five percent of U.S. companies that suspended their 401(k) matching contributions between January 2008 and January 2010 have restored the retirement savings perk in the past year, according to an analysis by professional services firm Towers Watson.

Be they young or be they old, people across America are worried about their financial prospects in retirement and the economic direction of the nation, a survey of Gen X, Gen Y and Baby Boomers by The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America found.

Mercer’s U.S. outsourcing business has begun including retirement income from Financial Engines in its defined contribution platform. Financial Engines says its Financial Engines Income+ is the first retirement income solution designed specifically for 401(k) plans.

U.S. households held $10.7 trillion in retirement assets at the end of 2010, according to a pair of retirement industry analysts who culled information from the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds report and U.S. Census data. This is just above the previous high of $10.5 trillion reached in 2007, and a big climb from the $2.4 trillion loss in retirement assets in the crash of 2008, when these assets fell to $8.1 trillion.

Mercer’s U.S. outsourcing business has begun including retirement income from Financial Engines in its defined contribution platform. Financial Engines says its Financial Engines Income+ is the first retirement income solution designed specifically for 401(k) plans.

U.S. households held $10.7 trillion in retirement assets at the end of 2010, Hearts & Wallets said, culling information from the Federal Reserve Flow of Funds and U.S. Census data. This is just above the previous high of $10.5 trillion reached in 2007, and a big climb from the $2.4 trillion loss in retirement assets in the crash of 2008, when these assets fell to $8.1 trillion.

Prudential has just released preliminary survey results indicating that when shopping for retirement plans, consumers between the ages of 18 and 36 are more interested than those over age 45 in guaranteed income features. The company is leveraging these results with additional features, including security, to certain plans offered by Prudential Retirement.

About a week ago, Prudential released preliminary survey results indicating that when shopping for retirement plans, consumers between the ages of 18 and 36 were more interested than those over age 45 in guaranteed income features. The company is leveraging these results with additional features, including security, to certain plans offered by Prudential Retirement.

Vanguard has filed with the SEC to offer the Vanguard Target 2060 Retirement Fund for those currently 18 to 20 years old, and early next year will merge the Vanguard Target Retirement 2005 Fund and the Vanguard Target Retirement Income Fund, as their allocations have become nearly identical.