The “Big” Picture

By Nevin Adams, EBRI

Adams

A recent EBRI Issue Brief examined trends in employment-based retirement plan participation, noting that in 2011, the percentage of all workers participating in an employment-based retirement plan was essentially unchanged from the year before. More specifically, the percentage of all workers (including part-time and self-employed) participating in an employment-based retirement plan¹ stood at 39.7 percent in 2011, compared with 39.8 percent in 2010.² At the same time, the percentage of full-time, full-year wage and salary workers ages 21–64 (those most likely to be offered a retirement plan at work) saw a slight decline, slipping from 54.5 percent in 2010 to 53.7 percent in 2011.

While those movements were very small, the increase in the number of workers participating in 2011 halted a three-year decline. Moreover, it’s not as though this gauge has shown a steady trend, even in recent history. When you take into account all workers, the percentage participating in an employment-based retirement plan reached 44.4 percent in 2000, but declined to 39.7 percent in 2006, before increasing to 41.5 percent in 2007—the highest level since 2004, before then slipping back to 39.6 percent in 2009.³

When you look inside the overall numbers, we find that some categories examined had increases in the probability of workers participating and others showed decreases. Not only does the status as a full-time or part-time worker have a major impact on participation rates, the report notes, so does the demographic characteristics of the individual worker, the type and size of their employer, and even their physical location (workers in the South and West were less likely to participate in a plan than those in other regions of the country, for example).

Looking at the overall percentage of females participating in a plan, you might notice that it was lower than that of males—but when you control for aspects such as work status or earnings, the female participation level actually surpasses that of males. If you look only at the participation rate of Hispanics as a group, they appear to lag other groups significantly in terms of retirement plan participation. However, it turns out that only the nonnative Hispanics actually have participation levels substantially below those of all other workers. In fact, nonnative-born Hispanics had substantially lower participation levels than native-born Hispanics, even when controlling for age and earnings.

In responding to big issues, it’s sometimes tempting to look at data only in the aggregate, and in the press of time, to draw broad conclusions from trend lines over remarkably recent history, trying to get a sense of the “big picture.” But as the data above suggest, a “better” picture is often drawn from an analysis of the component parts that make up that big picture, balanced with an appreciation for longer-term trends.

Notes

¹ The number of workers participating in an employment-based retirement plan increased from 60.7 million in 2010 to 61.0 million in 2011, returning to the 2009 level, the second lowest since 1997 and well below the 67.1 million workers who participated in a plan in 2000, the peak year for the number of workers participating in a plan from 1987–2011.

² “All workers” is the broadest work force population group, including those not covered by a retirement plan. A more restrictive definition of the work force, which more closely resembles the types of workers who generally must be covered by a retirement plan in accordance with the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), is the work force of full-time, full-year wage and salary workers ages 21–64. Under this definition, 60.8 percent of these workers worked for an employer sponsoring a plan, and 53.7 percent of them participated in a retirement plan.

³ An important public-policy topic associated with an analysis of employment-based retirement plan participation is the number of workers who are not participants, as well as the number of those who work for employers/unions that do not sponsor a plan. For example, when taking into account only workers who work full-time, full-year, make $10,000 or more in annual earnings, and work for an employer with 100 or more employees, 15.1 million (or 25.2 percent of the defined population) would be included among those working for an employer that did not sponsor a plan. Another way to look at this last number is that 74.8 percent of workers with those characteristics worked for an employer that did sponsor a retirement plan in 2011. This is explained in more detail on page 30 of the November 2012 EBRI Issue Brief, “Employment-Based Retirement Plan Participation: Geographic Differences and Trends, 2011,” online here.  See also “’Under’ Covered,” online here.

Retirement Readiness: Who’s Close and Who’s Not

Jack VanDerhei

Among those who are likely to miss their retirement savings goal, how many will be close? And how many will miss it by a mile?

According to a new report by EBRI, nearly half of Generation X households will have enough to cover basic retirement costs, and about a third will fall short—but not by much. About 20 percent are likely to be far off-target.

Past analysis using EBRI’s proprietary Retirement Security Projection Model® (RSPM) has found that roughly 44 percent of Baby Boomer and Gen X households are projected to be at-risk of running short of money in retirement, assuming they retire at age 65 and retain any net housing equity in retirement until other financial resources are depleted. However, that includes a wide range of personal circumstances, from individuals projected to run short by as little as a dollar to those projected to fall short by tens of thousands of dollars.

EBRI’s new research takes a closer look at where different types of people are likely to fall within the range of retirement income adequacy. Looking specifically at Gen X households (those born between 1965–1978, currently ages 34–47), EBRI’s RSPM analysis finds that:

• Nearly one-half (49.1 percent) will have substantially more (at least 20 percent more) than the income threshold deemed adequate to afford basic retirement expenses and uninsured health care costs.
•  Approximately one-third (31.4 percent) will be close to the threshold for retirement adequacy (between 80–120 percent of the financial resources necessary to cover basic retirement expenses and uninsured health care costs.
• About 1 in 5 (19.4 percent) are projected to be substantially below (less than 80 percent) of what is needed.

EBRI also finds that a worker’s future years of eligibility in a defined contribution retirement plan makes a huge difference in his or her likelihood of having enough money to cover basic retirement expenses and uninsured health care costs. Among Gen Xer single females simulated to have no future years of defined-contribution-plan eligibility, nearly two-fifths (39 percent) are in the most vulnerable (less than 80 percent) category, although this shrinks to only 8 percent for those with 20 or more years of future eligibility in a defined contribution plan.

“One problem with simply classifying a household as ‘at risk’ or not is that some households may be missing the threshold by relatively small amounts,” said Jack VanDerhei, EBRI research director and author of the report. “Using this new classification to analyze the impact of future eligibility in a defined contribution plan on the percentage of households with less than 80 percent of the necessary resources for sufficiency shows a substantial impact for all family/gender categories, especially single females.”

Full results are published in the November 2012 EBRI Notes, “All or Nothing? An Expanded Perspective on Retirement Readiness,” online at www.ebri.org

Self-Insured Health Plans Growing, Driven by Large Employers

Large private-sector employers are driving a trend toward more “self-insured” health plans, according to a new report by EBRI.

Among employers that offer health coverage to their workers, there are two basic types of insurance plan:

* A self-insured plan, in which the employer assumes the financial risk related to health insurance; or

* A fully insured plan, in which an insurance company is paid to assume the risk.

Historically, large employers have been far more likely to self-insure than have been small employers, the EBRI report notes, and there are significant incentives for them to do so: Large multi-state employers can provide uniform health benefits across state lines if they self-insure (lowering administrative costs) and also are not required to cover state-mandated health care services—as are fully insured plans.

Following the passage and implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), there has been speculation that an increasing number of smaller employers would opt for self-insurance. As the EBRI report explains, some employers think that components of PPACA, such as the strict grandfathering requirements, the minimum-creditable-coverage requirement, the breadth of essential health benefits, affordability requirements, as well as taxes on insurers, medical-device manufacturers, and pharmaceutical companies and reinsurance fees will work to drive up the cost of health coverage.

“Employers generally, and small employers particularly, concerned about the rising cost of providing health coverage may view self-insurance as a better way to control expected cost increases,” notes Paul Fronstin, director of EBRI’s Health Research and Education Program and author of the report. “This new analysis provides a baseline against which to measure future trends.”

Among the findings of the EBRI report:

• The percentage of workers in private-sector self-insured health plans has been increasing. In 2011, 58.5 percent of workers with health coverage were in self-insured plans, up from 40.9 percent in 1998. To date, large employers (with 1,000 or more workers) have driven the upward trend in overall self-insurance. The percentage of workers in self-insured plans in firms with fewer than 50 employees has remained close to 12 percent in most years examined.
• Massachusetts, the only state to have enacted health reform similar to PPACA, has seen an increase in the percentage of workers in self-insured plans among all firm-size cohorts, except among workers in firms with fewer than 50 employees.
• Overall, 58.5 percent of workers were in self-insured plans in 2011, but the percentage ranged by state, from a low of 30.5 percent to a high of 73.8 percent.

Full results are published in the November 2012 EBRI Notes, “Self-Insured Health Plans: State Variation and Recent Trends by Firm Size,” online at www.ebri.org

Retirement Plan Participation Stabilizing

As the economy slowly recovered from the recent recession, American workers’ participation in employment-based retirement plans stabilized, according to a new report by EBRI.

In 2011, the percentage of workers participating in an employment-based retirement plan was essentially unchanged from a year earlier. Specifically, the percentage of all workers (including part-year, part-time, and self-employed) participating in an employment-based retirement plan moved from 39.6 percent in 2009, to 39.8 percent in 2010, to 39.7 percent in 2011.

“The increase in the number of workers participating in 2011 halted the three year decline from 2008–2010,” said Craig Copeland, senior research associated at EBRI and author of the report. “The downturns in the economy and stock market in 2008 and into 2009 showed a two-year decline in both the number and percentage of workers participating in an employment-based retirement plan. The 2010 and 2011 participation levels stabilized as the economy recovered.”

As the EBRI report explains, the type of employment has a major impact on participation rates. Among full-time, full-year wage and salary workers ages 21–64 (those with the strongest connection to the work force), 53.7 percent participated. However, this rate varies significantly across various worker characteristics and the characteristics of their employers.

For instance, being nonwhite, younger, female, never married; having lower educational attainment, lower earnings, poorer health status, no health insurance through own employer; not working full time, full year, and working in service occupations or farming, fisheries, and forestry occupations were all associated with a lower level of participation in a retirement plan. Workers in the South and West were less likely to participate in a plan than those in other regions of the country.

The overall percentage of females participating in a plan was lower than that of males, but when controlling for work status or earnings, the female participation level actually surpasses that of males. The retirement plan participation gender gap significantly closed from 1987–2009 before slightly widening in 2010 and 2011.

Full results are published in the November 2012 EBRI Issue Brief, “Employment-Based Retirement Plan Participation: Geographic Differences and Trends, 2011,” online at www.ebri.org

Predict-Able

By Nevin Adams, EBRI

Retirement planning is a complex and highly individualized process, but many people find it easier to start by focusing on a single, specific target number.

For those interested in a single number for health care expenses in retirement, a recent EBRI report provides that.  Among other things, the report noted that a 65-year-old man would need $70,000 in savings and a woman would need $93,000 in 2012 if each had a goal of having a 50 percent chance of having enough money saved to cover their projected health care expenses in retirement.  A 65-year-old couple, both with median drug expenses, would need $163,000 in 2012 to have a 50 percent chance of having enough money to cover health care expenses.¹

Determining how much money is needed to cover health care expenses in retirement is complicated.  It depends on retirement age, the length of life after retirement, the availability and source of health insurance coverage after retirement to supplement Medicare, the rate at which health care costs increase, interest rates, market returns, and health status, among other things.  That said, it is possible to project health care expenses with some accuracy, and EBRI’s recent analysis uses a Monte Carlo simulation model to estimate the amount of savings needed to cover health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket health care expenses in retirement.

However, those recent “single number” projections specifically excluded the financial impact of long-term care.

EBRI has long acknowledged the critical impact that health care expenses can have on retirement finances, and considering that EBRI has long incorporated both the costs of health care and long-term care in its Retirement Savings Projection Model® (RSPM), one might well wonder why this particular report specifically excluded those long-term care projections.

For all the complexity in those calculations, the reality is that everyone won’t have to deal with the expenses associated with long-term care.  For those who will, the impact on retirement finances could be significant, even catastrophic.²  That’s why EBRI has modeled their impact in the RSPM since 2003.

As noted above, for those interested in a single number, the recent EBRI report provides that, along with variations that permit one to take into account different likelihoods of success and gender/marital combinations.  We are able to do that because we treat longevity risk and investment risk stochastically,³ and the fact that those expenses (and the costs of insurance) are, at least relatively, predictable.

But while it is possible to come up with a single number that individuals can use to start setting retirement-savings goals, it is important to bear in mind that a single number based on averages will be wrong for the vast majority of the population—and that those who rely exclusively on that single number run the risk of running short.

Notes

¹ Unlike reports produced by a number of organizations, the EBRI report also provided estimates for those interested in a better-than-50-percent chance of success.  See ”Savings Needed for Health Expenses for People Eligible for Medicare: Some Rare Good News,” online here.

² The EBRI Notes article above illustrates the difference: If you ignore the impact of nursing home and home health care expenses, more than 90 percent of single male Gen Xers were projected to have no financial shortfall in retirement—but when that impact was included, just 68 percent of that group was projected to have no financial shortfall in retirement.  The error of ignoring nursing home and home health care costs is even more profound if one focuses on the percentage of individuals with shortfalls in excess of $100,000. 

³ For an expanded description of the difference stochastic modeling can make, see “Single Best Answer.”

See also:  “Employment-Based Retiree Health Benefits: Trends in Access and Coverage, 1997-2010”, and “Effects of Nursing Home Stays on Household Portfolios.”

“Grayed” Expectations?

By Nevin Adams, EBRI

Even the best retirement planning requires a fair number of assumptions: the age at which you hope to retire, for one thing; the amount of income that living in retirement will require; the length of time over which your retirement will last; the rate of return on your savings prior to, and following, retirement; the sources of retirement income that will be available to you, and in what amount(s).

Consider that in the 2012 Retirement Confidence Survey while worker confidence in having enough money to pay basic expenses in retirement wasn’t exactly high (only 26 percent were very confident), workers were noticeably less likely to feel very confident about their ability to pay for medical expenses after retirement (13 percent) and even less likely to feel very confident about paying for post-retirement long-term care expenses (9 percent) — levels that have remained statistically unchanged since 2010.

Indeed, the lack of employment-based retiree health insurance may result in unanticipated expenses in retirement. In the 2011 RCS, one-third of workers reported that they expected to receive this type of insurance from an employer (36 percent), though only 27 percent of retirees in that survey actually received it.

Earlier research found little impact of reductions in coverage on retirees, but the report notes that that may be because initial changes employers made to retiree health benefits affected future retirees, rather than those retired at the point of change.  A recent EBRI Issue Brief highlights that, over time, more and more retirees have “aged into” those program changes, resulting in the greater impact found in more recent studies.  The report also notes that most employers that continue to offer retiree health benefits have made changes in the benefit package they offer, changes that impact both the cost and availability of the benefit, including raising premiums that retirees are required to pay, eliminating employer subsidies, tightening eligibility, limiting or reducing benefits, or some combination of these.

However, as that Issue Brief also notes, very few private-sector employers currently offer retiree health benefits, and the number offering them has been declining, even in the public sector:  Between 1997 and 2010, the percentage of non-working retirees over age 65 with retiree health benefits fell from 20 percent to 16 percent.  Still, expectations seem to outpace reality; in 2010, 32 percent of workers expected retiree health benefits, while only 25 percent of early retirees and 16 percent of Medicare-eligible retirees actually had them.

Circumstances change, expectations matter, and retirement planning that relies on flawed or outdated expectations can, unfortunately, leave us short of where we need to be.

Notes

See Employment-Based Retiree Health Benefits: Trends in Access and Coverage, 1997‒2010

Rely-Able?

By Nevin Adams, EBRI

Adams

Last week the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College provided an update on its National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI).¹ The impetus for the update was the triennial release of the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finance (SCF), published in June, reflecting information as of December 2010.

Now, many things have changed since 2007, and in the most recent iteration of the NRRI, the authors note five main changes: the replacement of households from the 2007 SCF with those from the 2010 SCF; the incorporation of 2010 data to predict financial and housing wealth at age 65; a change in the age groups (because a significant number of Baby Boomers have retired, according to the report authors); the impact of lower interest rates on the amounts provided by annuities; and changes in the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) rules that lowered the percentage of house value that borrowers could receive in the form of a reverse mortgage at any given interest rate.

And, when all those changes are taken into account, the CRR analysis concludes that, as of December 2010, anyway, the percentage of households (albeit those from a partially different cohort) at risk of being unable to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living in retirement increased by 9 percentage points² between 2007 and 2010 (from 44 percent at risk to 53 percent).

When the baseline for your analysis is updated only every three years, it’s certainly challenging to provide a current assessment of retirement readiness. In previous posts, we’ve covered the limitations of relying solely on the SCF data³and, to some extent, the apparent shortcomings of the NRRI (see “’Last’ Chances”), and retirement projection models, generally (see “’Generation’ Gaps”).

On the other hand, the impact of the decline in housing prices and the stock market were modeled by EBRI in February 2011 (see “A Post-Crisis Assessment of Retirement Income Adequacy for Baby Boomers and Gen Xers”), while the impact of the rising age for full Social Security benefits has been incorporated in EBRI’s Retirement Savings Projection Model (RSPM) since 2003. Moreover, EBRI has also included the potential impact of reverse mortgages in our model for nearly a decade now.

Meanwhile, as a recent EBRI report noted (see “Is Working to Age 70 Really the Answer for Retirement Income Adequacy?”), the NRRI not only assumes that everyone annuitizes at retirement, and continues to ignore the impact of long-term care and nursing home costs (or assumes that they are insured against by everyone), but it also seems to rely on an outdated perspective of 401(k)-plan designs and savings trends, essentially ignoring the impact of automatic enrollment, auto-escalation of contributions, and the diversification impact of qualified default investment alternatives.

It’s one thing to draw conclusions based on an extrapolation of information that, while dated, may be the most reliable available. It’s another altogether to rely on that result in one’s retirement planning, or the formulation of policies designed to facilitate good planning.

Notes

¹ The report, “The National Retirement Risk Index: An Update” is available online here.

² The report notes that, between 2007 and 2010, the NRRI jumped by 9 percentage points due to: the bursting of the housing bubble (4.5 percentage points); falling interest rates (2.2 percentage points); the ongoing rise in Social Security’s Full Retirement Age (1.6 percentage points); and continued low stock prices (0.8 percentage points).

³ As valuable as the SCF information is, it’s important to remember that it contains self-reported information from approximately 6,500 households in 2010, which is to say the results are what individuals told the surveying organizations on a range of household finance issues (typically over a 90-minute interviewing period); of those households, only about 2,100 had defined contribution (401(k)-type) retirement accounts. Also, the SCF does not necessarily include the same households from one survey period to the next. See “Facts and ‘Figures.’”

Out of Cite?

By Nevin Adams, EBRI

Adams

Our industry pays a lot of attention to the investment choices that retirement plan participants make; we fret about the type and number of choices on their investment menu, the efficacy of target-date funds, the utilization of active versus passive investment strategies, and the prudence of the asset allocation choices that individuals make—with or without the benefit of tools and/or professional guidance. Unfortunately, once they leave that part of our private retirement system, not so much.

A significant percentage of that retirement plan money winds up in individual retirement accounts, or IRAs. In fact, today IRAs represent more than a quarter of all retirement assets in the U.S., according to a recent EBRI Issue Brief. But there remains a limited amount of knowledge about the investment behavior of individuals who own IRAs, alone or in combination with employment-based retirement plans.

In order to fill this gap, EBRI has undertaken an initiative to study in depth this connection between DC plans and IRAs, and created the EBRI IRA Database,(1) which links individuals (both within and across data providers) in this IRA database and with participants in DC plans. The asset allocation across ages within each IRA type(2) had some minor differences, but, in general, the percentages allocated to equities and balanced funds declined as the owner became older, and the percentage allocated to bonds and other assets increased. Additionally, as the account balances increased, the percentages of assets in equities and balanced funds combined decreased, while bond and “other” assets’ shares increased. While gender differences abound in many walks of life, male and female IRA owners had virtually identical allocations in bonds, equities, and money in the EBRI IRA database, though males were slightly more likely to have assets in the “other”(3) category, and females had a higher percentage of assets in balanced funds.

Among IRA categories, Roth IRAs had the highest share of assets in equities (59.1 percent) and balanced funds (15.5 percent). Of course, Roth owners are younger, on average, than rollover owners, and Roth IRAs tend to be supplemental savings funded by individual contributions only, whereas rollovers tend to be the main or primary retirement savings for workers nearing retirement or retirees.

Indeed, the most significant difference among IRA types is that Roth owners were much more likely to have 90 percent or more of their accounts invested in equities than in other asset types, and were correspondingly likely to have less than 10 percent of their assets in bonds and money combined. Once again, the likelihood of these “extreme” allocations was very similar across genders.

When comparing the overall percentage of 401(k) assets held in equities (equities, equity share in balanced funds, and company stock) from the EBRI/ICI 401(k) database, the number is relatively close to that found in the IRA accounts (60.0 percent in 401(k) plans and 52.1 percent in IRAs), although the bond and money percentages are higher for IRAs than 401(k) plans (19.9 percent and 11.6 percent, respectively, for bonds and 8.9 percent and 4.4 percent, respectively, for money), while balanced funds constitute more of the assets in 401(k) plans than in IRAs. In sum, while it wasn’t the focus on the study, the average asset allocation found for IRAs was similar to that in 401(k) plans.

Of course, those IRA balances likely aren’t the totality of the retirement savings for these individuals, and thus, whether that particular allocation—looked at in isolation—is “good” news or not, remains to be seen.(4)

Notes
(1) The Employee Benefit Research Institute’s retirement databases (the EBRI/ICI Participant-Directed Retirement Plan Database, the EBRI IRA Database, and the EBRI Integrated Defined Contribution/IRA Database) have been the subject of multiple independent security audits and have been certified to be fully compliant with the ISO-27002 Information Security Audit standard. Moreover, EBRI has obtained a legal opinion that the methodology used meets the privacy standards of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. At no time has any nonpublic, personal information that is personally identifiable, such as Social Security number, been transferred to or shared with EBRI. None of the three databases allows identification of any individuals or plan sponsors.

(2) The report considered four types of IRAs: traditional-contributions (traditional IRAs originating from contributions, in which distributions are taxable); Roth (in which contributions are nondeductible and distributions are tax free); SEP (Simplified Employee Pension)/SIMPLE (Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees); and traditional-rollovers (traditional IRAs originating from assets rolled over from other tax-qualified plans, such as an employment-based pension or DC plans, in which distributions are taxable)

(3) “Other” assets includes assets that do not fit into the categories of equities, bonds, money/cash equivalents, or balanced funds. This could include stable-value funds, real estate (both from investment trusts and directly purchased), fixed and variable annuities, etc.

(4) As the EBRI IRA Database expands, more elaborate studies are being conducted. Linked with defined contribution account data, the tracking of movements of money between multiple retirement saving accounts (DC plans and IRAs) is being studied to see what, if any, asset allocation changes are being made when assets are moved between accounts. Furthermore, once individuals have reached retirement, the withdrawal or “spend-down” of those assets over time can be studied based on the longitudinal data that will be available, offering the potential of a far greater understanding of the retirement preparation and post-retirement behavior of Americans as these databases mature.