Retirement archive
Every Retirement story, newest first. 355 stories
1 story
- Plans & Sponsors
TDF default's young win ends at $250,000
Vanguard's lineup study shows 80% of under-35 savers ride a single target-date fund — and fewer than 30% of $250,000 accounts still do.
7 stories
- Retirement Advisers
Do your reps: advice for the 2026 Emerging Leaders
The 2025 Emerging Leaders cohort tells next year's class that client exposure and networking beat waiting to feel ready.
- Plans & Sponsors
Washington Saves puts administrator and state partnerships out to bid
The 2027 auto-IRA program wants its vendor and partnership strategy settled before the first contribution is collected.
- Policy & ERISA
IRS gives rollovers a common form, a five-step standard
Notice 2026-49's voluntary framework gives plan administrators and recordkeepers a benchmark they'll be measured against.
- The Wrap
Principal wraps private markets in CITs while DOL's benchmark stalls
The recordkeeper is attaching its own oversight to target-date CITs, aiming at the 3 percent of defined-contribution assets still stuck in alternatives while the DOL's benchmark stalls.
- Retirement Advisers
Higginbotham and Two West: buying the platform, not the book
The Fort Worth company's combination with a Kansas City 401(k) specialist keeps the team and platform intact — a sign retirement M&A is pricing capabilities over accounts.
- Retirement Advisers
For retirement advisers, digital tools can't replace the human moment
New MDRT research hands plan advisers a playbook: automate the routine, escalate the high-stakes and volatile moments to a human.
- Policy & ERISA
Debt pushes retirement crisis fears to a record high
Eight in 10 Americans now see a retirement crisis, and the latest NIRS survey finds debt and housing costs have replaced the savings gap as the dominant threat to retirement security.
8 stories
- Plans & Sponsors
A third of middle-class workers plan to skip retirement
A Transamerica survey puts longer work horizons and women's savings strain on the plan-design table.
- Retirement Advisers
Public sector workers favor family over advisers, MissionSquare finds
New MissionSquare data points advisers toward confidence-building, not more information, for public sector participants.
- Policy & ERISA
Payroll vendors are the gatekeepers of the Trump Account
Large employers will need a payroll vendor contract for eligibility and enrollment before any Trump Account contribution reaches a worker.
- Investments
Principal packages private markets into managed CITs
The recordkeeper is targeting the 3 percent of DC assets in private markets by attaching its oversight and monitoring to target-date CITs.
- Plans & Sponsors
Custom TDFs should replace the 'managed QDIA'
Two different risk decisions share one product name; Ron Surz argues the custom target-date fund is the simpler, DOL-friendly fix for defaulted participants.
- Policy & ERISA
GAO asks DOL to define retirement data privacy rules
A 31-provider audit finds marketing permissions and unspecified data-selling rules in plan privacy disclosures, and the GAO wants the Labor Department to set limits.
- The Wrap
Debt sends retirement M&A into the contribution layer
With managed accounts posting a measurable contribution lift and debt outranking saving, buyers are moving past recordkeepers to the feature that answers the squeeze.
- Policy & ERISA
Middle-class savings are being outrun by debt, report finds
The median middle-class household has $64,000 in retirement accounts, and debt repayment outranks retirement saving as a financial priority.
5 stories
- Plans & Sponsors
Managed accounts substitute for auto-escalation
New Morningstar research shows managed-account users contribute up to 2.3 points more, with the biggest gaps in voluntary-enrollment plans.
- Plans & Sponsors
Debt has become the retirement crisis driver
A new NIRS survey finds 80% see a retirement crisis, with debt and affordability at the center and AI advice still facing a trust gap.
- Plans & Sponsors
Rival Companies to buy Smart USA's managed-account arm
The managed-account provider splits from its global parent, leaving Stadion under a CEO-controlled holding company.
- Retirement Advisers
Plan advisers get an AI research tool with a source trail
Morningstar's PitchBook integration with Google's Gemini puts attributable data in front of plan fiduciaries.
- Retirement Advisers
PGIM arms DC reps with Nestimate's target-date scoring tool
The analyzer scores target-date funds against a plan's workforce, putting demographic fit in front of plan committees as the next menu mandate takes shape.
5 stories
- Policy & ERISA
DOL watchdog embeds with DOJ fraud center
The Labor Department's inspector general signed on to the National Fraud Detection Center, putting investigators alongside federal prosecutors in a shift from reactive referrals to embedded detection.
- Retirement Advisers
ASPPA creates a credential for the pooled-plan market
The Qualified Pooled Plan Professional designation arrives as pooled employer plan assets double to $34 billion in a year.
- Retirement Advisers
ASPPA puts a credential behind pooled-plan work
The new QP3 designation argues that pooled-plan administration is its own discipline, not an extension of single-employer work.
- Plans & Sponsors
Record HSA participation masks a retirement-plan gap
A record 83% of eligible employees now contribute, but only 22% invest their HSA balances.
- Investments
Managed accounts' payoff is a plan design story
Morningstar's new research finds the biggest contribution gaps in voluntary enrollment plans, suggesting managed accounts work best where plan design leaves the work to participants.
6 stories
- Investments
401(k) plans keep dropping active domestic equity funds
A review of 11-K filings shows active domestic equity funds accounted for a large share of 2025 lineup changes, with consultants blaming the category's persistent struggles in a fee-first market.
- Policy & ERISA
IRS proposal moves the deduction line on retroactive benefit increases
Proposed single-employer funding rules reach back into the closed plan year and settle where plan expenses sit in target normal cost.
- Plans & Sponsors
Succession Planning Is the New Executive Benefits Battlefield
NFP's survey shows most employers haven't designed executive benefits around leadership transitions, handing advisers an opening that starts with key-person risk rather than a product.
- Plans & Sponsors
ParticipantOS turns the plan's payroll feed into engagement
Freedom Fiduciaries' new system reacts to hires and contribution changes as they happen, giving advisors a personal touch at scale without the campaign calendar.
- Retirement Advisers
Credential glut sells activity, not fiduciary judgment
401(k) Specialist argues designation proliferation has become a supply-side business more than a measure of fiduciary judgment.
- Investments
The 60/40's bond cushion is broken. Target-date funds are next.
Plan sponsors should stress-test late-career glidepaths against 2022, when bonds fell with equities and the classic portfolio lost 16.64%.
8 stories
- Retirement Advisers
Pontera adds advice-only path to workplace accounts
The new workflow lets advisers recommend without executing, a bet on the larger pool of relationships that stop short of discretion.
- The Wrap
Retirement managed accounts shift to adviser-controlled rails
Vanguard opens custom models to outside platforms, Pontera reaches held-away 401(k)s without custody, and SEI clears the back office with AI. The adviser's desktop is becoming the point of assembly for retirement capital.
- Retirement Advisers
CFP Board's rollover guide gives advisers a path and plaintiffs a target
The board's seven-step checklist turns duty of care into a compliance path for rollover advisers and a written standard for the next lawsuit.
- Policy & ERISA
Debt report prices Social Security rescue at $2.7 trillion
The Conference Board's scenarios make the benefit cut the default planning assumption; the transfer is the tail case.
- The Wrap
T. Rowe's $19 billion bond bet moves target-date fight into the sleeves
The F/m deal buys the fixed-income engine CITs demand. PGIM's private-markets hire shows the next front is inside the fund.
- Investments
T. Rowe Price buys F/m to strengthen target-date fixed income
The $19 billion deal adds ETF and managed-account capabilities to its retirement business.
- Retirement Advisers
Planning cuts retirement stress by 40 points
New Cerulli data show retirees with a financial plan feel far less stress than those without, a gap advisers can use to start the retirement conversation.
- The Wrap
Stash adds 401(k) rollovers to its app; Voya lands D.C. recordkeeping
Stash lets customers roll old 401(k)s into IRAs without leaving the app; Voya wins recordkeeping for D.C.'s public retirement plans.