Retirement Planning Education

In a prior blog, we’ve covered what a dream retirement lifestyle may look like. Other discussions have centered on the importance of planning for retirement or the array of retirement vehicles available. But what about the process of retirement planning itself?

Retirement planning isn’t limited to just people and their advisors. When someone reaches retirement age, support networks become important. Responsibilities shift. Family members are actively involved in their parents’ caretaking. Or they may take on the role of caretaker for their parents. Read More

We’ve already covered how the retirement landscape in America is changing. One contributing factor is the changes being made to defined-benefit pension plans. In the private sector, defined-benefit pensions simply are disappearing. According to Towers Watson, over the last 15 years there has been a big decline in the number of largest American companies offering new hires defined-benefit pensions. That percentage took a 36-point nosedive from 60 to 24 percent.

There also has been pressure on defined-benefit pensions in the public sector. In mid-June, the Obama administration announced it would be looking at ways to cut benefits in multi-employer private pension plans. Over 10 million people are covered by about 1,400 multi-employer plans. It’s been estimated around 1 million of those individuals would run out of money in the coming years. Hundreds of thousands of retirees would be affected with the benefit cuts. Read More