Retirement archive
Every Retirement story, newest first. 357 stories
9 stories
- Investments
Participants say yes to private markets; committees still own the default
Invesco's survey finds 65% of participants want a private-markets sleeve in their target-date fund, but the 58% who accept the fee trade-off is the figure the shelf will actually turn on.
- Policy & ERISA
ESOP valuation bill moves the litigation target to appraisers
Passage of S. 2403 gives ESOP fiduciaries a statutory good-faith defense, but the amendment is prospective, so the near-term docket barely moves while valuation firms absorb the new risk.
- Investments
CFA Institute splits 401(k) private markets into return and ballast
A small private allocation can pay off in a DC plan, but only two of the five asset classes modeled beat a plain stock-and-bond baseline, and that arithmetic has consequences for how sponsors should buy the category.
- Investments
Active management's DC case now runs through the shelf
MFS's Jeri Savage says concentration has reopened the active-passive question in 401(k) lineups; the recordkeepers who build the defaults will settle it.
- Policy & ERISA
The 401(k) safe harbor's weak flank is its comment file
Three committee ranking Democrats are asking the FBI and the DOL inspector general to test whether the record supporting the private-markets rule includes thousands of comments nobody actually filed.
- Policy & ERISA
AI can't be a fiduciary, but it can leave a paper trail
A 401(k) Specialist column argues ERISA's real failure is moral courage; the fix it implies is narrower than the fix it claims.
- The Wrap
IRAs now outgrow the 401(k)s that feed them
Retirement assets hit a record $51.2 trillion, and the fastest-growing pool is the one where mutual funds have the least reach.
- Retirement Advisers
Retirement saving now lands ahead of the down payment
U.S. Bank's 2026 survey puts Gen Z's wealth-building start at 19 and ranks retirement over ownership, which resets the adviser's opening conversation.
- The Wrap
The $51.2 trillion record is a price; the exit is the product
A 15% equity quarter restored $3.8 trillion to household retirement balances, and with money still leaving DC plans, the industry's real product is the rollover that follows.
7 stories
- Retirement Advisers
Retirement's senior hiring turns outward for AI talent
Three senior appointments in a single roundup, two of them built around applied AI, show providers buying capability they have not grown.
- Investments
The $51.2 trillion retirement quarter was a market print
A 15% equity quarter restored $3.8 trillion to household retirement balances, and the only behavioral line ICI publishes says the money keeps leaving DC plans—though the arithmetic says most of the widening was mark to market.
- Retirement Advisers
Small-plan fee dispersion is the finding, and advisors own it
Two plans of the same size can sit two and a half times apart on administration, and that gap is what gets an advisor into the room.
- The Wrap
The 401(k) advice fight has moved to the login
Pontera's legal case and Fidelity's December cutoff point to the same conclusion: whoever controls the login sets the price of participant advice.
- The Wrap
Equitable rents a glidepath as CITs take the target-date market
Recordkeepers now decide which target-date franchise gets the shelf, and the terms of Equitable's T. Rowe Price series show what that gate is worth.
- Plans & Sponsors
DC assets hit $15 trillion; plan design sits still
An 8.7% quarter rewards the consultants who automate paperwork rather than reopen the lineup, and it makes the rollover look like the product.
- Income & Annuities
Half of retirees never chose an income strategy
Schroders' 2026 survey puts the income target at $5,094 a month while 51 percent of retirees report no strategy for converting savings — awkward timing for the guaranteed-income shelves being built.
11 stories
- Retirement Advisers
Pre-retirees want control of decisions they cannot yet evaluate
Edelman Financial Engines' first confidence report finds most pre-retirees want to run their own retirement decisions even though 60% cannot say what they own, pushing plan advice from education toward diagnosis.
- Income & Annuities
MoneyGuide's annuity account types make the projection the new shelf
Put four annuity account types into the planning software advisers already open every day and the purchase decision moves upstream of the carrier's illustration.
- Policy & ERISA
IRS splits SECURE amendment deadlines; discretionary date still binds
Required amendments now run on a rolling clock tied to the annual Required Amendment List, pushing Roth catch-up adoption to 2029, while optional amendments keep the 2026 date.
- Policy & ERISA
ESOP valuation bill reaches the president with a good-faith defense
Fiduciaries get statutory cover for relying on a 59-60 appraisal, and the litigation that follows is likely to chase the appraiser instead of the number.
- Plans & Sponsors
The student-loan match's real cost is payroll work, not contributions
EBRI's persistence data says the SECURE 2.0 match belongs on the plan-design agenda, not the budget line sponsors keep debating.
- Policy & ERISA
The House just wrote the ESOP valuation rule the DOL never issued
A 401-14 vote settles the process question for ESOP fiduciaries and pushes the litigation toward appraiser independence.
- The Wrap
The default, not the annuity shelf, now decides retirement income
BlackRock is selling the glide path, Vanguard found the RMD already won the decumulation default, and carriers are buying shelf access to a channel the default bypasses.
- Retirement Advisers
Private assets will reach 401(k)s through the default sleeve
T. Rowe Price's sixth annual consultant survey finds the AI debate settled and the private-assets fight moving inside the multi-asset vehicle that already holds plan defaults.
- Plans & Sponsors
Voya's AI buildout is an operating story, and its certification is the moat
The recordkeeper is spending on capacity rather than product, which leaves sponsors to ask what the virtual agent is permitted to decide and what record it leaves behind.
- The Wrap
AI won the paperwork. The fiduciary call is still human.
DC consultants have automated meeting prep and workflows nearly to saturation; the firms pulling ahead are proving human oversight of plan design, which AI has barely touched.
- Retirement Advisers
Consultants automate the paperwork, not the fiduciary call
Across 36 firms advising $10.3 trillion of DC assets, AI has taken over workflows and meeting prep while plan design sits almost untouched.
5 stories
- Retirement Advisers
DC consultants stopped debating AI and started using it on the paperwork
T. Rowe Price's consultant study shows near-total AI adoption in the paperwork and a governance gap separating the firms pulling ahead.
- Policy & ERISA
Groom's new hire bets ERISA's next fight is the plan menu
A résumé that runs from EBSA enforcement through in-house product counsel at three providers shows where retirement law is being repriced.
- Income & Annuities
SS&C widens Black Diamond's annuity shelf to seven carriers
Jackson National and Protective Life join a platform roster that increasingly determines which fee-based annuities reach RIA clients.
- Investments
BlackRock's LifePath Solutions moves the sale from funds to construction
The framework lets sponsors assemble a pension-style glide path inside the 401(k) default, shifting the contest from fund selection to who owns the construction.
- The Wrap
Creative Planning Now Owns the Consultant Search
More than 200 RVK relationships put the fiduciary gatekeeper inside an asset gatherer, and the ownership question now follows every consultant search.
6 stories
- Retirement Advisers
RVK's institutional seats are the asset Creative Planning bought
More than 200 institutional relationships put an asset gatherer inside the fiduciary room, and the ownership question now travels with every consultant search.
- Income & Annuities
Vanguard to plan sponsors: your decumulation default is the RMD
A new Vanguard paper traces the retiree drift into required minimum distributions to plan design, putting withdrawal flexibility ahead of the product shelf.
- Plans & Sponsors
EBRI finds student-loan borrowers in their 40s hold 45% less in 401(k)s
The student-loan match sponsors can already offer is worth more than $10 billion a year, and EBRI's data shows it would reach borrowers carrying a 45% 401(k) gap into their 40s.
- Investments
EBRI's $20.2 billion prices the match sponsors skipped
The participation gap opens at enrollment and the balance gap peaks two decades later, leaving a single threshold as the plan-design decision sponsors have not made.
- Policy & ERISA
EBRI prices the unused student-loan match at $20.2 billion
The brief shows the participation gap opens at enrollment and the balance gap peaks two decades later, which makes the sponsor's match threshold the only decision that matters.
- Plans & Sponsors
EBRI puts a $10 billion price on student loan debt
The participation gap opens at enrollment and never closes, which makes SECURE 2.0's student-loan match the lever most sponsors have not yet pulled.
2 stories
- Plans & Sponsors
NQDC's retention case has a comprehension problem
Nearly a third of sponsors have switched providers recently; the survey suggests the retention case will be won on service teams and how well executives understand the benefit.
- The Wrap
Great Gray rents the diligence half of its private-markets CITs
Six private-markets CIT shelves in five months, and the Great Gray-iCapital split shows which half the industry regards as scarce.