J. Mark Iwry’s Dispatches from the Pension Wars

马克思克has spent much of his long career trying to improve retirement security for the U.S. workforce. In his current role as deputy assistant secretary for retirement and health policy at the Treasury Department and a senior adviser to the Treasury secretary, Iwry has led initiatives that most recently include an October regulation on lifetime income options as qualified default options intarget-date funds;9月的指导意见cash balance pensions;并于7月Longevity保险指导对个人退休账户，而不仅仅是公司赞助计划。亚博篮球怎么下串

哈佛大学的毕业生,哈佛大学法学院and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Iwry has worked in government, at Treasury in the Clinton and Obama administrations; in academia, at Georgetown University; and at the Brookings Institution, where he was principal of the Retirement Security Project.亚博赞助欧冠Senior Writer Frances Denmark caught up with Iwry to find out what he’s planning next to help Americans save more for their ever-lengthening retirement years.

亚博赞助欧冠: What is the latest front in the struggle to improve retirement security for the American workforce?

Iwry:财政部和内部收入服务一直在继续提供有关401（k）计划和个人退休账户的使用寿命年金的指导。试图恢复养老金对我们私人养老金制度的一致方式 - 养老金意思是定期退休的寿命 - 是为了让累积计划提供全部计划。当有人退休时，作为他们的支出选项之一，作为他们的支出选项之一的人，而不是刚提供年金，这是一项投资，累积延期的年金单位作为贡献，当该人准备采取利益时，这成为收入年金。这有助于通过使其对计划的每次连续贡献的增量，低赌注决定以及仅向年金投入账户余额的一小部分，帮助克服个人对购买年金的抵抗。计划内积累年金也可以通过美元成本平均在确定购买价格的利率，随着时间的推移锁定一系列速率的利率来扩散购买的风险。

Having the annuity in a plan also takes advantage of the fiduciary responsibilities of plan officials, their economies of scale and their bargaining power for the benefit of the individual.

And then we’ve gone further to say that an in-plan accumulation annuity can be offered as a default if it is embedded, for example, in a QDIA [a qualified default investment account, often a target-date fund].

How does the annuity work for people with only an IRA?

Our longevity insurance guidance from July 2014 applies not just to plans but to IRAs. An individual whose employer doesn’t offer a 401(k) could use a长寿annuityin an IRA. This is the first time the approximately $13 trillion market for 401(k)s and IRAs has been open to this kind of product, one that would not start paying benefits until the participant reaches an advanced age, such as 80 or 85.

我们允许长寿年金进入这个市场，因为我们希望这可以成为许多美国人的选择，包括中等收入人士。我们知道，当它仅在巨大的IRA和401（k）市场之外的非资格化基础上提供时无法访问这一点。我们7月监管的市场意义是采取此产品，这在其使用中已相当限制，而不是众所周知的，因为它已被限制在非资格化 - 即非审核计划，非IRA空间 - 并制作它可以普及，可以推广到数百万的人，这些人在401（k）s和iras。

How would an IRA participant access the annuity?

One form of IRA is an individual retirement annuity. A financial institution serving as an IRA trustee would offer lifetime income — including an insurance company or a mutual fund or another financial or investment firm that might offer a managed payout solution that’s not an annuity but provides a set dollar amount every month for many years to come and with possible enhancements of various kinds. The final benefit would be a stream of income that can be viewed as predictable and reliable.

有些人在推动更好的退休福利或新计划设计方面失去了心脏，因为他们需要新的立法。

我们没有放弃。目标太重要了。如您所知，我们最近发布了关于裁定 - 福利现金余额计划的最终规定[9月19日]，我们希望澄清这些混合计划的规则。在重要方面，法规已容纳规则，以使提案国更容易进行那些计划。这是我们与定义的福利养老金有关的领域之一。

我们是一个lso trying to get the DB into the DC, as you know, “DB’ifying” our 401(k) system, if you will. It is easier in many ways to encourage 401(k)s to incorporate some of the virtues of the defined benefit pension, some of the attractive attributes that make us particularly fond of defined benefit plans. And the lifetime income we were talking about earlier, the lifetime income, is an important part of that effort.

After automatic enrollment in 401(k) plans, automatic escalation of employee contributions and now longevity annuities, what’s next in the DB’ifying of DC plans?

We’ve been calling the aggregate of good 401(k) automatic features and practices 401(k) 3.0, because they go beyond the do-it-yourself 401(k) of the 1980s and 1990s — 401(k) 1.0 — and the rudimentary 3 percent automatic enrollment of new hires — 401(k) 2.0. All of that is part of an overall fabric that’s designed to be responsive to the decline of the defined benefit pension. On one hand, we’re trying to keep the defined benefit pension alive where we can, and nurture it where we can. On the other hand, we’re trying to reincarnate it within the much more active and growing 401(k) plan.

另一个指导项目并不有人注意到401（k）中允许残疾保险。除了终身养老金年金的福利，雇主，普遍覆盖，雇主的风险承担而不是强迫人员，除了终身养老金年金福利，普遍覆盖，危险之外，DBS的有价值的属性是残疾福利。我们试图在雇主的选择中以自愿方式介绍进入401（k）的所有这些东西。如果雇主想要，他们可以使他们的“K”成为退休储蓄和安全的更强大的车辆。

The changes to retirement benefits are often only available to workers at larger employers. What is happening at the small end of the market?

这些策略中的许多策略现在都过滤到较小的市场。销售很多这些计划的供应商正在强调自动注册，以获得劳动力的全部参与。这尤其是较低收入的人，通常不会遵守自己的人，除非他们违反了计划。我们似乎正在获得更多的投资阵容，这些阵容更合理和用户友好，希望较低的费用。在非平面空间中，人们根本无法访问计划，管理局有两个主要步骤。

One, the president has continued to propose something that would approach a much more universal coverage of retirement savings, that is, it would dramatically expand coverage by having employees who don’t have access to an employer plan automatically enrolled into payroll deposit IRAs. They would have low-cost, simple investments, one default investment and a couple of alternatives, and employers would get a tax credit. It is quite efficient and low cost. But it will take legislation.

What is happening more immediately?

We’ve gone ahead at the administrative level — this does not require legislation — with the myRA [My Retirement Account] initiative. This puts on the table for those without access to an employer plan an arrangement that involves no cost for the employee, no fees, a totally safe U.S. savings bond backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. No confusing menu of investment options. There’s only one investment in this starter account, and it’s held in a Roth IRA, providing an easy, simple option to get the nonsaver started into the saving habit. That’s something we’re proceeding with. We’re going to start implementing it very slowly and carefully at the end of this year.

How will the myRAs work?

We’re excited that we’re able to put this option into the market. Employers that want to make these Roth IRA savings bonds available by payroll deduction can let their employees just say, “I’d like to save X dollars of my paycheck every pay period to go into savings in one of these IRAs.” That employer would also have virtually no costs, just the minor administrative task of telling the employees they have this option and letting them sign up with Treasury for it.

Once people get into the habit of saving, once they get comfortable dipping their toe into the water here and accumulating some assets for the first time, they could roll over to private sector IRAs. If they hit a level of $15,000 of accumulation in a myRA, they would roll over tax free to Roth IRAs in the private sector.

What are your plans for rollout?

We want to make sure that we have figured out exactly how best to implement it, working closely with a selected group of employers. Over the coming weeks and months, Treasury will work closely with this small group of participants to get feedback and ensure that the user experience is as simple and straightforward as possible — both for employers and employees. We’re beginning to very carefully let a select number of employers — various employers that have volunteered to do this — make myRA available to their employees who are not eligible for a 401(k). A lot of these are small employers that don’t have 401(k)s.

Some people feel a 100 percent Treasury bond investment is not the best way to build a nest egg.

It’s only a starter investment. We’re all in favor of using the modern-portfolio-theory approach to investing the QDIAs within 401(k)s that have diversified investments and give people a chance to combine safety with growth potential. But for the nonsaver whom we want to transform into a new saver, the idea of a very safe option through the myRA, a savings bond that has no downside, with value that will never go down, only up, seemed to us to be an attractive option to put out there for folks who are interested in starting to save.

Follow Frances Denmark on Twitter at@francesdenmark.

Get more onpensions.