Coronavirus and Your Retirement Prospects

If you're like most Americans, you probably plan to retire one of these days. If you're not in that category, you may be retired already. Assuming that you fall into that first group, I want to talk to you a little bit about how this pandemic is affecting you.

If you're like 10-20% of the workforce, you have lost your job, been furloughed, or had your work hours cut back. Even among the rest of the population, many of you will have trouble meeting your performance goals for the year. In any case, this is not shaping up to be a good year for retirement savings.

Despite the great performance in the last week or so, equity markets are down nearly 25% for the year. At the same time, prevailing interest rates are at or near historic lows. What that means to someone who had planned to retire in 2020 is that your ability to purchase lifetime income protection has declined.

How does that work? The higher the prevailing interest rates, the more money you or an insurer can earn on investments and therefore, the larger your lifetime income protection. So, while bond returns (investments in bonds) have been good in 2020, your falling portfolio balances combined with no place to get good and safe returns is a point of pain for people considering retirement.

How about those of you whose jobs have disappeared whether that be temporary or permanent? Your 401(k) deferrals have ceased. That means that you're not getting matching contributions either. And, you may be taking advantage of the relaxed rules in the CARES Act on hardship withdrawals or plan loans. But, where are those amounts coming from? Your retirement nest egg is being eaten up by the effects of the pandemic. Wasn't it intended for retirement? Oops, something got in the way.

As a consultant, I am hearing from real-world companies that they are looking for ways to cut back, at least for 2020, their expenditures on retirement benefits. Who does that decrease in expenditure affect? You, of course, and not in a good way.

Yes, this is filled with bad news. I can't sugar coat it. If your future retirement is dependent on a 401(k) plan (plus Social Security), you've been hit hard. And, you may be hearing it here first, but if your employer temporarily reduces the amount it is spending on your retirement benefits, that reduction may not be temporary.

Surely, not everyone is being hit that hard. Surely, there are employees who are faring just fine with respect to their retirement prospects as this pandemic wreaks havoc on the rest of them. But, is there a way we can label them?

There is. They are all participants in defined benefit plans. That means that their employers have made a commitment to them to provide lifetime income in the form of a pension. For those people, if they remain employed, they have that securiry. For them, their 401(k) is supplemental savings. Most of them are going to be just fine.

Yes, I know all of the stigma around pension plans. They're expensive ... well, they're only as expensive as the benefit they provide. They're volatile ... they don't have to be. They're a dinosaur ... only because people say they are.

But, employees in defined benefit plans have one giant reason to sleep better at night than those relying on their 401(k) only. They will get a pension.

So, when the dust settles from the pandemic, and it will, many companies will be looking to hire as people scramble to either return to their old jobs or to find new ones, where will you be?

Here's my little nugget: take the time now whether you are employed or looking. See which companies are providing ongoing pension plans. Check them out. They are likely employers of choice.

And, to companies trying to figure out how they will restock their workforces when the time comes, be that employer of choice. Be better thant the rest and offer a pension.