Issues for Implementing Phased Retirement in Defined Benefit Plans

Abstract

U.S. society is aging. The nature of work has changed from work that requires physical strength to work based on knowledge. As a result, workers are beginning to phase into retirement rather than going directly from full-time work to full retirement. From a retirement income perspective, many final-average-pay defined benefit plans have features that make phased retirement difficult at best and detrimental at worst. U.S. pension law and regulations present barriers to phased retirement if the phased retiree wants to receive a portion of available pension benefits during phased retirement.

This paper examines private sector options to encourage phased retirement and to eliminate the disincentives that currently affect defined benefit plans. It offers alternative calculations of final average pay that do not penalize the part-time worker. It also demonstrates that the plan’s early retirement reduction and late retirement increase can be set to maintain actuarial equity throughout phased retirement. The paper presents benefit calculations with equal actuarial values for various payout patterns.

The paper discusses the coordination between phased retirement and subsidized early retirement. Finally, the paper notes some of the changes in ERISA that will be needed to facilitate phased retirement in defined benefit plans, especially for participants who want to receive pension distributions while working part time.     

Retirement income decisions: the silent generation speaks

Survey findings indicate that members of the Silent Generation--those born between 1933 and 1945, and perhaps the last ones to rely heavily on a defined benefit pension plan--feel confident that they will have enough money to live comfortably to at least the age of 85. Yet, many are at risk of outliving their retirement assets. They overestimate their Social Security payouts and the likelihood that they will work in retirement, and they underestimate their postretirement expenses, especially health care. Many lack safeguards against overspending and do not understand their longevity risk. The Silents' experiences in preparing for and living in retirement may offer some valuable lessons to be learned by the baby boomers and the generations that follow as they plan for a financially secure future.     

Communicating the need for additional savings in the face of retiree health benefit cutbacks.

In preparing for retirement, employees need to consider not only their pension benefits but also the challenge of financing their retirement health care needs. Various trends evolving in our society indicate that future retirees will be increasingly dependent on their own retirement savings. Evidence suggests that employees are not fully aware of the significance of health costs in retirement and must be educated to the need to save for retiree health care expenses. This article discusses the issues of Medicare reduction and retiree health benefit cutbacks and the relative communication and education challenges such issues pose to employers.     

Accounting and the construction of the retired person

This paper seeks to describe the constitutive role played by accounting in the social safety net for the elderly, and its effects on the individual preparing for retirement. The paper documents the effects of accounting on life-long behaviours, through the objectivization of the individual as a worker, saver, and pensioner. It shows how accounting has, by capturing measures of individual earnings, by enlisting the individual in the preparation of tax returns, and by reflecting back to the individual various accumulations of lifetime savings, attempted to transform that individual not just into a saver who can continue to consume long after ceasing to produce, but into an investor whose interests are aligned with the financial markets. The focus of the paper is the Canadian retirement income system. Starting with an early attempt at retirement income protection, the 1908 government annuities program, the paper develops a genealogy of Canada’s present comprehensive retirement income system. By examining the succession and accumulation of retirement income programs introduced since 1908, the study shows how accounting has functioned as a dividing practice, separating citizens into categories wherein they can be subjected to particular programs. The paper suggests that the accounting technologies used in constructing the Canadian system have fallen short as tools for governing retirement and retirement savings, largely due to their inadequacy as technologies of the self. The paper is of particular relevance to accounting scholars because the aging population in many countries is putting tremendous pressure on retirement income programs. The paper helps us to understanding the role of accounting in shaping political policy on the aged and in preparing citizens for old age.     

At What Age Do You Expect to Retire? Retirement Expectations and Increases in the Statutory Retirement Age

We analyse the extent to which an increase in the statutory retirement age affects individuals' retirement expectations. Understanding how individuals adjust their expectations is crucial to the evaluation of this policy, since retirement expectations directly affect other important decisions such as labour supply, engagement in (further) education and, of course, savings and investments. We consider the 2007 German pension reform that legislated an increase in the statutory retirement age from 65 years to 67. Our analysis is based on a longitudinal study that directly asks respondents at what age they expect to retire. Using a difference‐in‐differences approach, we look at the changes in subjective retirement expectations over time and estimate the extent to which they can be attributed to the 2007 reform. We find that the reform shifted the retirement expectations of the younger cohorts, although there is some heterogeneity in the way individuals adjusted. While there are no significant differences between men and women, lower‐educated individuals failed to revise their expectations. As these individuals usually acquire both lower pension claims and lower private savings, the fact that they have been slower in updating their retirement expectations causes concern regarding their income security after retirement.     

Shifting responsibility to workers: the future of retirement adequacy in the United States

While many 401(k) participants at large companies can expect replacement of nearly 100% of preretirement income, not all workers participate in their 401(k) plan. Moreover, the authors show that even among participants, the extent of retirement preparedness depends on defined benefit (DB) plan coverage and retiree medical benefit generosity. Given recent trends in the elimination of DB plans and retiree medical subsidies and the voluntary nature of 401(k) participation, retirement income responsibility is increasingly shifting to workers. The authors discuss how employers might help workers meet their retirement income needs in this changing environment.     

Sounds great, but what's in it for me? Helping employees understand their role in the retirement planning process

The communication of retirement plans by employers to their workers has greatly improved, but in many cases still falls short of getting employees to understand their roles in planning for their own retirement. The author states that a well-designed personalized retirement savings education program encourages employees to take ownership of their retirement plan. Three employee profiles are examined in the context of the personalized retirement education process.     

延迟退休年龄、内生生育率与养老金

本文通过构建内生生育率的OLG模型,从微观视角考察了延迟退休年龄对生育率、养老金替代率及其个人养老金收入的影响。研究表明:(1)延迟退休年龄会提高均衡时的生育率水平,但提高幅度非常有限。(2)生育率的提高会增加未来劳动力供给,促进养老金替代率上升和养老金收入增加,而延迟退休年龄延长了养老保险缴费期限,也会促进养老金替代率上升和养老金收入增加;但同时,延迟退休年龄将使得预防性储蓄下降,资本积累降低,工资收入下降,养老金收入降低。因此,延迟退休年龄会使养老金替代率上升。当资本产出弹性大于或等于0.5时,延迟退休年龄会使得养老金收入降低;当资本产出弹性小于0.5时,在平均预期寿命较大或养老保险缴费比例较高的情形下,养老金收入会随着退休年龄的延迟而增加,反之,其会随着退休年龄的延迟而降低。进一步地,将模型拓展到包含人力资本的情形,延迟退休年龄仍会提高均衡时的生育率与养老金替代率。     

Making Federal Pension Policy Work

Abstract

Millions of Americans retire while they are still productive. Of these, many will have the resources to enjoy all of their golden years. Unfortunately, many others will face economic hardships after they have exhausted their own resources but have become too frail to return to work. Part of the problem is that the current pension system is fraught with financial incentives that push ablebodied elderly workers into retirement just when they should instead be encouraged to remain in the workforce to accumulate additional retirement assets. This paper recommends a number of ways to change federal pension laws in order to encourage elderly workers to remain in the workforce. For example, this paper recommends toughening the penalty on premature distributions, repealing the minimum distribution rules, and repealing the exceptions to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act that permit retirement plans to provide early retirement incentives and subsidies.

This paper also considers whether the government should require that all retirement plans be neutral as to the timing of retirement. In an age-neutral world, workers would always accrue more benefits if they kept working. Consequently, more workers would remain in the workforce, accumulating additional assets for their eventual retirement.

Finally, this paper also considers how federal pension policy could help counteract the tendency of Americans to retire too early because they underestimate their life expectancies, overestimate their financial resources, and fail to understand the deleterious effects of inflation. In particular, this paper recommends that the government require that virtually all retirement plans pay at least a portion of their benefits in the form of an inflation-adjusted annuity.     

Public pensions and labor supply over the life cycle

In order to remain fiscally solvent, governments of many countries have reformed their public pension schemes to encourage labor supply at older ages. These reforms include reductions in the generosity of public pensions and reduced penalties for working past the normal retirement age. In this paper, we consider how reforms to public pension systems affect labor supply over the life cycle. We put the recent empirical evidence on the effect of government pensions on labor supply in a life cycle context, and we present evidence on the effectiveness of tax reforms for stimulating labor supply over the life cycle. Our main conclusion is that the labor supply of older workers is responsive to changes in retirement incentives. The labor supply of younger workers is less responsive. Thus the trend towards lower taxes on older workers in many developed countries should continue to fuel their trend towards later retirement.     

Worries and plans as individuals approach retirement

The primary objective of an employment-based retirement plan is to provide a secure and adequate income for workers throughout retirement. In the defined contribution (DC) framework, asset accumulation is a means to the end, but not the end. Drawing retirement income from savings and paying for health care expenses in retirement are the two issues that concern individuals the most as they approach retirement. This article examines the attitudes of near-retirees regarding these risks and their plans for managing them. The author discusses how DC plan design can have a major impact on how individuals convert their retirement savings to retirement income; differences in survey responses between those who have consulted a financial advisor or other financial professional and those who have not; and the role of trust in implementing advice.     

我国职工退休年龄影响因素的实证研究

当前我国劳动力逐渐短缺,职工退休年龄直接关系到我国劳动力供给的数量和结构。使用2011年在广东省21个地市的问卷调查数据,研究影响职工退休年龄问题的影响因素。实证研究表明,工资、工龄对职工退休年龄的影响显著为正。养老金对男职工退休年龄的影响显著为负。机关事业单位职工的退休年龄更晚。教育年限对女职工的影响显著为正。已婚、...     

Is Prescott right? Welfare state policies and the incentives to work, learn, and retire

This paper bolsters Prescott’s (Fed. Reserve Bank Minneap. Q. Rev. 28(1):2–13, 2004) claim that high taxes are responsible for lackluster labor market performance in Continental European countries. We develop a life-cycle model with endogenous skill formation, endogenous labor supply, and endogenous retirement. Labor taxation distorts not only labor supply, but also education and retirement decisions. Actuarially unfair pensions further exacerbate labor tax distortions on retirement. Education subsidies can nevertheless cushion the adverse impact of taxation on skill formation. Feedbacks between education, labor supply, and retirement are important. The model is simulated with realistic behavioral elasticities that are consistent with microeconometric evidence. If, besides labor supply, also learning and retirement are endogenous, the uncompensated (compensated) elasticity of the tax base equals 0.46 (0.85), which is more than twice as large as the standard uncompensated (compensated) labor supply elasticity of 0.18 (0.40). Furthermore, life-cycle interactions between education, working, and retirement are quantitatively important and the interactions raise all behavioral elasticities substantially. For example, the uncompensated labor supply elasticity increases with one-half due to life-cycle interactions (to 0.26). We demonstrate that low European labor supply can be fully explained by taxation without relying on unrealistically high labor supply elasticities. Reducing labor market distortions, cutting benefit levels, lowering tax rates, and making (early) retirement actuarially more fair, therefore, boosts labor supply, delays retirement, and stimulates skill formation. In addition, high education subsidies are needed in large welfare states to offset explicit and implicit tax burdens on human capital investment.      

Wages,productivity, and retirement

Pensions, both state provided and privately provided, affect incentives to retire. But private pensions are part of the long term compensation package, and altering pensions not only affects retirement incentives, but also wages. A key factor in determining whether retirement occurs at the appropriate age is the relation of productivity to alternatives. When wages, coupled with public and private pension accrual, deviate from worker productivity, private retirement incentives are distorted. Sometimes this results in too much early retirement, creating fiscal difficulties. Sometimes, it results in a desire for delayed retirement, which argues for mandatory retirement rules. Pay compression, where wages do not vary across individuals as much as productivity, exacerbate distortions. Defined benefit pension plans tend to create incentives to retire after a certain number of years of work. Defined contribution plans do not have this feature. Public plans should be designed noting their interaction with incentives that are already inherent in the private wage and pension schemes.     

An analysis of the Medical Savings Account as an alternative retirement savings Vehicle

Personal savings as a percentage of disposable income have dropped steadily since the early 1980s. Savings have continued to decline in 1999, as the savings rate—savings as a percentage of after-tax income—dropped to a record low of minus 0.7% in April 1999, according to the Department of Commerce. The study finds that MSA-type accounts are a viable supplement to retirement savings, but should not be used as a replacement for existing retirement alternatives given their current structure. Results show that future health care expenditures are an important factor in the success or failure of MSAs as supplemental retirement accounts. Medical Savings Accounts are currently eligible for long-term care expenses, and to the extent that such expenses occur during retirement, MSA balances could be used to pay for retirement expenses. In that respect the accounts already capture the characteristics of a retirement savings account. A comparison of the Roth IRA with the MSA as defined by the 1996 HIPAA legislation is also conducted.     

Retirement planning and long-term risk

Many defined contribution plan participants have available to them various measures of short-term risk. However, some of these participants don't understand that reducing short-term risk comes at the cost of increasing the risk of not reaching their retirement income goal. This article looks at the relationship between short- and long-term risk and their impact on retirement savings.     

How Behavioral Finance Can Inform Retirement Plan Design1

Several key lessons for pension design have emerged in the last decade from behavioral economics and finance research. This article analyzes the insights from this literature on how workers decide to save, manage their retirement investments, and draw down their assets in retirement. The aim is to understand how workers and retirees deviate from the rational, well‐informed agents that underpin economic theory, public policy, and often retirement plan design. The evidence suggests that many people save too little, others make poor investment decisions, and still others spend their accumulated assets too quickly in retirement. The “behavioral” reasons for such tendencies include overconfidence, limited self‐control, the overvaluation of the present at the expense of the future, susceptibility to “framing,” and an aversion to realizing losses. By shedding light on why people fail to achieve an ideal outcome on their own, this literature offers practical guidance to plan sponsors and policymakers who must design, regulate, and evaluate the institutions that help provide for economic security in old age. More specifically, the literature suggests that the plan design should be made automatic for the many individuals unwilling to exercise full control over their retirement savings choices. Recommended design features include automatic enrollment, scheduled annual savings increases, and default investment options or managed account programs that represent optimal portfolio choices.     

Negative Effects of the Canadian GIS Clawback and Possible Mitigating Alternatives

Abstract

In Canada there are three main sources of government-provided retirement income: the Canada/Quebec Pension Plans (C/QPP), which have benefits and contributions based on earnings up to the Yearly Maximum Pensionable Earnings; Old Age Security (OAS), which is a fixed amount for most but does include a “clawback” of benefits for high-income individuals; and the Guaranteed Income Supplement (GIS), which is designed to supplement those persons with extremely low income. The annual GIS benefit is reduced, or clawed back, by 50 cents for every dollar of annual income the person has in retirement, including C/QPP and income from Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs) and other savings. OAS benefits are not included in determining the GIS clawback.

The result of this is that low-income individuals who attempt to enhance their retirement replacement ratio actually see a decrease in government-provided support the more they save for retirement. Savings in an RRSP can effectively be taxed at more than 100% through corresponding reductions in the GIS, social housing, home care, GAINS (Ontario’s Guaranteed Annual Income Supplement), and other benefits that are based on one’s personal retirement income.

This paper explores alternatives to the 50% GIS clawback, including a basic GIS exemption, a GIS clawback rate lower than 50%, and a combination of the two. The goal is to improve the fairness of the GIS and reduce the disincentive to save for retirement, without increasing the overall cost of the program significantly.     

Benefits, consumerism and an "ownership society"

Compared to the generations preceding them, baby boomers assume more of both decision-making and financial responsibility for their health care and retirement. This article reviews the changing health and retirement plan landscape, and describes the plans, products and features available to the baby boom generation. It then describes how employers can become educators in order to help boomers best manage their increased responsibility for their health care and retirement.     

The costs and benefits of retirement policies at U.S. audit firms

The mandatory retirement age within U.S. Big 4 audit firms ranges from 55 to 62, which has attracted controversy and legal scrutiny. The potential costs of an earlier retirement age include the loss of established networks, experience, and expertise. However, studies in non-U.S. jurisdictions conclude that partners nearing retirement disengage from their work, which manifests in lower audit quality. Using intensive hand-collected data on the age of 3,148 U.S. audit partners, we provide the first evidence of the costs and benefits of mandatory retirement policies at U.S. audit firms. We find that audit quality does not vary, but that fees are significantly higher for U.S. partners approaching retirement. These findings suggest that U.S. mandatory retirement policies are forcing out experienced revenue earners that are producing audit quality equivalent to younger partners. Additional analysis reveal that partner retirements are mechanisms to promote and grow the client portfolios of younger and female audit partners, and therefore increase partner diversity. Our additional analysis of non-U.S. audit partners leading audits of U.S. listed companies shows that partners approaching retirement are associated with lower audit quality across certain measures. This suggests that the audit quality of older U.S. partners is superior to their non-U.S. counterparts.