Are Your Employees Worried About Retirement?

A recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center reported that Americans are more worried about financing their retirement than they were in March of 2009. About 38 percent of adults say they are “not too” or “not at all” confident that they will have enough income and assets for retirement. Reportedly, this is up from 25 percent from February-March 2009. The study goes on to show that these concerns are more prevalent for young and middle-aged adults than for Baby Boomers, who have retirement in their sights.  

As with most statistics, we have to ask ourselves, “Is this real, or is it Memorex?” (For those of you who remember the ads!)  Are people really concerned, or is this just an echo from all those negative articles about the “retirement crisis?”  Do people even know how much they need to retire?  And, if they are concerned, how can we convince them that their defined contribution plan is the single, best way to save for retirement? With 23 million people looking for work, and unknown how many millions of people underemployed, it is not a shock to learn that people are concerned about having enough for retirement.   

Here are three things that you can do:  

1. Tell all your employees that they need to join and save in the retirement plan, even if they are ambitious and plan on creating their own business or getting another job.  
2. Remind them that Social Security WILL be there for them, however, they should become aware of the issues and voice their opinion by voting beginning in November.  
3. Use this study as a way to engage a dialogue with your own employees to remind them that they can do something about their future by increasing their deferral percentage today.

You can look to PSCA to weigh in on this topic more often in 2013 as we move forward with our own study – the Millennial Retirement Project to explore the attitudes of the Millennial Generation about retirement issues.