Reports on Defined Contribution Plans

  • Federal Employee Participation Patterns in the Thrift Savings Plan Calendar Year 2007 (Office of Personnal Management, April 2010). The United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) analyzed participation in the Thrift Saving Plan (TSP) to identify employee participation rates and determine if the data suggests possible actions to be taken to improve the methods by which we educate Federal employees so they will be better able to plan for retirement.
  • Returns on 401(k) Assets by Cohort (Center for Retirement Research, March 2010). This brief puts the investment experience of the Early Boomers in context by comparing it with historical returns and with the experience of younger workers.
  • Does Autoenrollment Affect Employer Contributions? (Urban Institute, December 2009). Low participation rates limit the effectiveness of 401(k) plans as a reliable source of retirement income. About one in five workers eligible to participate in their employer’s 401(k) plans do not enroll (Munnell, Golub-Sass, and Muldoon 2009). Firms can raise participation rates by automatically enrolling employees as soon as they become eligible. However, higher participation rates increase costs for employers that match employee contributions, and firms appear to reduce the rate at which they contribute to 401(k) plans when they adopt autoenrollment.
  • 401(k) Plans and Race (Center for Retirement Research, November 2009). Many data sources show a disparity among racial and ethnic groups regarding participation in and contributions to 401(k) plans. The question is whether racial and ethnic differentials remain after controlling for a broader array of factors included in a nationally representative sample of households, the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF).
  • An Update on 401(k) Plans: Insights from the 2007 SCF (Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, March 2009). The Survey of Consumer Finances is a triennial survey of a nationally representative sample of U.S. households, which collects detailed information on households’ assets, liabilities, and demographic characteristics. Given the collapse of the financial markets and the economy, this Issue in Brief uses the 2007 SCF data as a starting point in evaluating the condition of 401(k)s and relies on more recent data and estimates to paint a full and current picture.
  • 401(k) plans move away from employer stock as investment vehicle (Monthly Labor Review, Bureau of Labor Statistics, November 2008). A look at the trend in 401(k) investment options over the past two decades shows a steady move away from employer stock as an investment vehicle. Should plans choose to expand the use of automatic enrollment features as a means of further encouraging participation, the regulations requiring the use of qualified investments might result in further movement away from investment in employer stock.
  • Fee Disclosure to Pension Participants: Establishing Minimum Requirements (International Centre for Pension Management, August 2008). Every year pension participants pay billions of dollars in fees. They need information concerning fees to make informed decisions about the services they are purchasing...This analysis of fee disclosure takes into account insights from behavioral economics in assessing the usefulness of different approaches...The report proposes a model fee disclosure. It creates a score card assessing the current fee disclosure in six countries: Australia, Canada, Chile, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
  • Storm Clouds Ahead for 401(k) Plans? (Urban Institute, July 2008). Designed to promote retirement saving, the Pension Protection Act of 2006 clarified auto-enrollment, auto-contribution, and auto-investment rules in employer 401(k) plans. Early evidence suggests that the legislation boosted these plan features and increased employee participation in 401(k) plans. It is too soon to gauge the act's ultimate success, however, because it hinges on the number of new participants that will eventually amass substantial account balances.
  • Robbing Tomorrow to Pay for Today: Economically Squeezed Families Are Turning to Their 401(k)s to Make Ends Meet (Center for American Progress, July 2008). To reduce the likelihood of workers leveraging their retirement to cover current catastrophes, policymakers must reduce the need for people to borrow. Policy solutions will require substantial improvements to income growth for America’s families, and a commitment to providing health and unemployment insurance to citizens who experience unexpected health expenditures and job loss. To understand the need for such policy actions, this report considers the evidence on loans drawn from DC plans from 1989 to 2004, the last year for which complete data are available.
  • Retirement Savings Accounts: Fees, Expenses, and Account Balances (Congressional Research Service, October 2007). For this report, CRS estimated the effect of 401(k) account expenses ranging from 0.4% to 2.0% of assets on the amounts accumulated in retirement accounts over a thirty-year period by married couples and single persons with high, median, and low earnings who contribute 6%, 8%, or 10% of earnings each year to a retirement account invested in a mix of stocks and bonds. We compared annual expenses of 0.8%, 1.2%, 1.6%, and 2.0% of plan assets to a low-cost “base case” in which annual expenses were equal to 0.4% of assets in the account.
  • Why Some Workers Don’t Take 401(k) Plan Offers: Inertia versus Economics (Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, February 2007). This paper examines workers who do not choose to participate in pension plans offered by their employers. It investigates reasons why workers do not participate, and in particular it investigates the role of inertia and similar behavioral explanations for nonparticipation.
  • 401(k) Plan Asset Allocation, Account Balances, and Loan Activity in 2005 (ICI/EBRI, August 2006). This report serves as an update of EBRI and ICI’s ongoing research into 401(k) plan participants’ activity through year-end 2005. The report includes account balance information for participants who consistently maintained accounts between 1999 and 2005 and account balances, asset allocations, and loan activity for all 401(k) participants at year-end 2005.
  • Automatic Enrollment in 401(k) Plans (Congressional Research Service, August 2006). This brief summarizes the enrollment practices, IRS rulings, participation rates and policy issues surrounding automatic enrollment in 401(k) plans.

 

Click these links to read reports on the following topics:

General Pension Reports
Defined Benefit vs. Defined Contribution Plans
Defined Benefit Plans
Defined Contribution Plans
Pension Plan Freezes, Changes, and Trends
Wealth, Savings and Retirement Reports
Women's Retirement Security
Polls Related to Retirement Security
Public Pension Plans