If there's one thing the government does well, it's make things take longer. The Department of Labor announced on Thursday a second extension for public comment on final regulations that would permit 401(k) and other retirement plan fiduciaries to provide more advice to plan participants under the Pension Protection Act of 2006. The new deadline is Nov. 18, 2009.
Employers have long awaited better guidance on what forms of investment advice the government wants to permit, or encourage. The comment period was previously extended to allow the Obama administration sufficient time to examine the legal and policy issues present in the regulation, according to a White House memo.
On Jan. 21, 2009, DOL released a final rule administering the provision of investment advice under the ERISA's prohibited transaction provisions. Subsequently, Labor officials drew out the applicability and effective dates of the final regulation from March 23 to May 22.
No word yet on what will be accomplished during the second extension other than changing of seasons.
Showing posts with label investment advice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label investment advice. Show all posts
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Tip of the Day
Like your mom always said, “If Jimmy jumped off a bridge, would you?” The lesson being, consider carefully whose lead you follow. Amid economic peril, that lesson is even more important regarding 401(k) advice. Forbes offers tips on separating the wheat from chaff on retirement advice.
Friday, October 3, 2008
News You Can Use: Workers crave financial advice
Troubles in the nation's economy may mean more employers will start to offer a financial advice program as part of their work-life benefits, suggests a survey by Workplace Options, a provider of HR services.
Read more on our Web site.
Read more on our Web site.
News You Can Use: Market chaos may affect women's retirement outlook
Women may have to rethink their retirement savings strategies due to the shake up in the U.S. banking system and its affect on the stock market, reports the Web site Women's enews.com.
While women's participation in retirement plans has risen considerably relative to men in recent years, they traditionally have been conservative investors. Their accounts are smaller, compared to men's. Consequently, a sudden and huge loss to the account is a major setback in building an adequate retirement nest egg, according to the online magazine. Data on 2007 balances in defined contribution plans shows that women on average hold $19,749 in their accounts, while the mean for men is $32,391.
Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, told Women's enews.com that recent financial crisis will cause many women to reevaluate their retirement plans and strategies. Some women may have to work longer than they had expected to recoup their losses in the stock market, she added.
Related EBN coverage:
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Scone: What about my money?
No matter your opinion on who’s to blame for the current financial crisis, the pending bailout legislation and which of the two presidential candidates can best lead us out of this economic turmoil, there is one issue I believe we all can agree on: We need to protect our retirement savings.
Your employees may have started asking you about the safety of their 401(k) assets, and if they haven’t, they likely soon will. I know that was my first consideration after the rollercoaster that has been the last week. No matter who got what in the bailout deal for Wall St., I wanted to know: What about my money?
I don’t even have a great deal of retirement savings accumulated in my 401(k), and I’m more than 30 years away from retirement. But knowing how important those assets will be to my financial future, my interest in the current stock market crisis was protecting my nest egg.
Your employees are no different, and they need to hear from you – right now – on how to take the appropriate steps to secure their retirement in terms of the new financial reality we’re faced with.
Now, I know the last thing employers want to do is tell someone how to manage their money -- for legal reasons, of course, as well as the fact that benefit managers may have the exact same questions as the people looking to them for guidance.
So, I encourage you to seek the counsel of your company’s 401(k) provider. Tell them it is paramount that they distribute new communications that address plan participants’ concerns, and make financial advisors available – ideally in person – to listen and answer questions.
If you can’t do that, at the very least view and distribute to employees this article and video from ABC News, anchored by the network’s personal finance expert Mellody Hobson. In addition to being contagiously upbeat and calming, Hobson lays out in plain English five key tips 401(k) participants “must know” about their accounts and how to manage them through this crisis. She also wrote a related piece on how people should handle their investments in general. They are both outstanding.
This is a delicate moment in our nation’s financial history. We all know that nationally, about 80% of eligible workers contribute to a 401(k), and those that do generally don’t contribute enough. Less than a majority of small businesses, although they employ a majority of the nation’s workforce, offer a retirement plan at all. And now, workers that do contribute are facing significant losses. Although these are difficult, and somewhat scary, economic times we find ourselves in, we cannot slide further behind in terms of retirement readiness. I urge you to do your part.
While history likely won’t note whether or not executives at the currently troubled firms received enormous golden parachutes, it will judge whether ordinary Americans were allowed to crash to the ground, armed without even the basic parachute of sound advice and guidance.
Your employees may have started asking you about the safety of their 401(k) assets, and if they haven’t, they likely soon will. I know that was my first consideration after the rollercoaster that has been the last week. No matter who got what in the bailout deal for Wall St., I wanted to know: What about my money?
I don’t even have a great deal of retirement savings accumulated in my 401(k), and I’m more than 30 years away from retirement. But knowing how important those assets will be to my financial future, my interest in the current stock market crisis was protecting my nest egg.
Your employees are no different, and they need to hear from you – right now – on how to take the appropriate steps to secure their retirement in terms of the new financial reality we’re faced with.
Now, I know the last thing employers want to do is tell someone how to manage their money -- for legal reasons, of course, as well as the fact that benefit managers may have the exact same questions as the people looking to them for guidance.
So, I encourage you to seek the counsel of your company’s 401(k) provider. Tell them it is paramount that they distribute new communications that address plan participants’ concerns, and make financial advisors available – ideally in person – to listen and answer questions.
If you can’t do that, at the very least view and distribute to employees this article and video from ABC News, anchored by the network’s personal finance expert Mellody Hobson. In addition to being contagiously upbeat and calming, Hobson lays out in plain English five key tips 401(k) participants “must know” about their accounts and how to manage them through this crisis. She also wrote a related piece on how people should handle their investments in general. They are both outstanding.
This is a delicate moment in our nation’s financial history. We all know that nationally, about 80% of eligible workers contribute to a 401(k), and those that do generally don’t contribute enough. Less than a majority of small businesses, although they employ a majority of the nation’s workforce, offer a retirement plan at all. And now, workers that do contribute are facing significant losses. Although these are difficult, and somewhat scary, economic times we find ourselves in, we cannot slide further behind in terms of retirement readiness. I urge you to do your part.
While history likely won’t note whether or not executives at the currently troubled firms received enormous golden parachutes, it will judge whether ordinary Americans were allowed to crash to the ground, armed without even the basic parachute of sound advice and guidance.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Tip of the Day
The U.S. Department of Labor recently issued two proposed rules to make investment advice more flexible for participants of 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts.
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