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The preferred way of many people to enjoy a secure retirement is work with companies that comes with a best retirement benefits and jobs with pensions. Most private companies spend an average of 92 cents /hour for their employee retirement benefits. Employer 401 (k) and corporate pension plans contribute as much as 4 dollars / hour in the utilities industry, as little as 9 cents /hour for catering workers. (more…)

Once your Average In­dexed Monthly Earnings (AIME) is calculated, the Social Security Administration applies a percentage, called a Replacement Rate, to arrive at your monthly social security statement of benefits amount. The average Replacement Rate is 40 percent. However, the rate tends to be higher for low-income workers and lower for higher income workers. In this progressive way, lower-paid workers—who in theory would have less opportunity to save—get proportionally more of their incomes replaced by Social Security. (more…)

Employer-sponsored defined benefit pension plans in which the benefit is defined by account value rather than monthly lifetime retirement income. Cash balance plans are often referred to as “hybrids” because they have some of the characteristics of traditional “defined benefit” (DB) pension plans and some of the characteristics of “defined contribution” (DC) plans, such as 401(k). In general, traditional defined benefit plans promise qualified employees an income benefit for life (or some other period) starting at “normal retirement age,” without regard to how much (or little) the employer must contribute to the plan to fund the benefit. Defined contribution plans, on the other hand, promise only how much the employer will contribute to a qualified employee’s account from time to time until the employee retires but they make no promises with regard to investment earnings or results, let alone a monthly income benefit for life. (more…)

Like the peculiar behavior of the dog in the night in the Sherlock Holmes story “Silver Blaze,” one of the obvious but overlooked clues about the insurance orientation of TIAA-CREF appears in the names of the accounts that are given to the various accumulation alternatives available to you. Each account is labeled an “annuity,” and each contribution is called a “premium.” To avoid confusion you should note that what TIAA-CREF labels as an “account,” you probably would call an investment choice or fund.

Stripped to the basics, your Retirement Annuity (or “Retirement Annuity”) boils down to an accumulation agreement between you and TIAA-CREF. (more…)

Having decided that a corporation can afford and should offer some type of employee benefits plan, the next step is to determine what type of plan or plans the company should adopt.

Employee benefit plans that provide some form of deferred benefits (that is, benefits deferred until after the employee retires) fall into two broad categories. A defined contribution pension plans provides an individual account for each participant and benefits are based upon the amount contributed by the company, or by the company and the employee, to that account, together with the investment results of the account. (more…)

Americans are increasingly become aware and responsible for their retirement wealth. Many of us are know that the prospect of living with social security income and a employer pension plan is reduced dramatically and not attractive. More and more pensioners and retirees are less put trust on traditional sources of income; saving for retirement and work part time are seen to be more attractive. But the condition for future pensioners and retirees will be getting worsened. Given the desire to build a large nest egg for retirement was the need to build a replacement income. (more…)

It is hard fact that the best-designed 401k plan in the most prosperous investment condition can’t have an enough income for retirement, if the person is not contributing a significant amount to the plan regularly. This problem can be as result as no continuous access to 401k plan, financial instability to contribute due to low salary, other financial priority in life, family and life needs, (more…)

It’s not just choosing the right retirement investment that helps 401k grow faster. It’s keeping your hands off them too. Most plans permit you borrowing from 401k against the account balance for compelling reasons. Those all-too-compelling reasons may reduce the amount you’ll be able to draw someday from your 401k. (more…)

After my parents moved to Florida in the mid-1980s, Mom and Dad would send us the job ads from the Sunday newspaper. In one letter, Mom circled an ad that she thought was perfect. “Look at this one,” she wrote. “It pays $401,000.” On closer inspection, we realized the job offered a 401k retirement savings plan, not a $401,000 salary. (more…)

The maximum 401k contribution per year to a 401(k) plan in 1998 is not to exceed 25% of compensation. Although there is no legal minimum contribution requirement, in order to reduce the plan’s administrative costs, some plans establish a minimum amount that must be contributed.

There is also a limit on total 401 k contributions that employee and employer together can (more…)