Retirement Blog

Got a question or complaint about your workplace retirement plan (or, for that matter, your health plan)? Now you can go to a new consumer assistance Web page, compliments of the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, or EBSA, and get a reply within three days. Hopefully, it won’t be an automated response like,

Remember the first time you heard the Beatles sing “When I’m 64″? When I get older, losing my hair, Many years from now … Will you still need me, will you still feed me, When I’m 64? Paul McCartney wrote it when he was 16 and first recorded it in 1966. I was 15 when

While the congressional supercommittee fights over ways to cut the deficit, the elephant in the room is Social Security, which is 21 percent of the federal budget, but it’s a key part of almost everyone’s retirement planning. Using Social Security’s own actuarial numbers, the National Center for Policy Analysis, a free market-leaning nonprofit, analyzed four

If the recent stock market volatility is driving you crazy, SeekingAlpha.com contributor David Crosetti has some comforting advice. He thinks people on the verge of retirement or already retired should “relax and enjoy the ride.” He says an investor who is 65 years old today can easily meet the 10-year buy-and-hold test because he is

Apparently, more than half  — 51 percent — of people investing their retirement savings in target-date funds see them as a retirement planning panacea and think that putting their money in them guarantees their retirement income needs will be met. That unsettling news is from recently released investment management firm AllianceBernstein’s Inside the Minds of

I talked to my Aunt Thummie today. She’s the last of my mother’s dozen brothers and sisters. At 91, she has outlived them all. Until recently, her retirement was an active one. She was able to drive and travel, then she had some setbacks and she’s moved into an assisted living facility. I called and

You’ve heard the serenity prayer, where the supplicant beseeches a higher power for the serenity to accept the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that can be changed and wisdom to know the difference. When applied to retirement planning, we really don’t have control over stock market moves, the future of

If junior is living in the basement after losing his job or not being able to find one in the first place, consider yourself typical. It’s an increasingly commonplace retirement planning dilemma. According to the U.S. Census, the percentage of men age 25 to 34 living in the home of their parents rose from 14

Retirement planning isn’t getting any easier. During the economic crisis two years ago, many companies suspended their 401(k) matches. Last year and in the first half of this year, about 75 percent of firms restored matches but about 25 percent didn’t. Of those that renewed the practice, 69 percent brought back the match at a

Retirement planning gets trickier when some of the things you may have counted on disappear. Class Act, the long-term care provision of the Affordable Care Act, was unceremoniously deep-sized last week because the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services said Class Act couldn’t be made to work under the provision that required it to