Receding pensions: How are you making up for it?
Marketwatch.com, May 27th, 2007
Workers now understand that their retirement
outlook has grown more dire as employers increasingly move away from
traditional pensions, but a significant portion of those workers aren't
doing much to improve their retirement security, according to the 17th
annual Retirement Confidence Survey by the nonprofit Employee Benefit
Research Institute.
More people seem to be
aware that the traditional pension is on tenuous ground, with 45
percent of workers saying they're less confident about receiving money
from a traditional pension, according to the survey of 1,252 U.S.
adults 25 and older.
Seventeen percent of workers experienced cuts to
their pensions firsthand within the past two years, according to the
survey produced by the institute and Mathew Greenwald & Associates,
a survey-research firm.
The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Response to reduced benefits
But
of the 17 percent who experienced retirement-plan cuts, 39 percent said
they've not made any changes as a result of the cutbacks.
"I
looked at that and said, 'This has to be an age influence' " — that is,
what younger workers are doing — said Jack VanDerhei, a Temple
University professor, EBRI fellow, and co-author of the survey. See the
full report on the EBRI Web site.
"Surprisingly,
it's not. You're virtually as likely to do nothing if you're 55 years
or older as if you're younger," he said. That's worrisome, he said,
because "if you lose your defined-benefit accruals when you're old, you
have a huge financial setback. And they're basically not doing
anything."
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