BENEFITS DIGEST

PBGC’s 2027 flat-rate premiums rise to $116 per participant for single-employer plans and $42 for multiemployer plans. The variable rate remains $52 per $1,000 of unfunded vested benefits, while its per-participant cap rises to $783. The maximum guaranteed benefit for a 65-year-old in a single-employer plan reaches $97,363.68 a year on a single-life annuity. Mercer also explains the separate present-value table used to restrict lump-sum payments from certain underfunded plans.

Emily Boyle’s installment in the Roadmap series sorts retirement-income options into three categories and explains what makes guaranteed products different, including their dependence on the insurer standing behind them, partial annuitization, fees and credit ratings. A survey of 2,000 pre-retirees found 22% have access to a retirement-income product in their plan and 29% don’t know whether their plan offers one, while 59% of those with access invest in one, a share of the smaller access group rather than of everyone surveyed. The piece frames the sponsor’s work as education and provider selection, not a mandate to add anything.

Panelists in this installment treat retirement income as a governance decision rather than a product purchase, distinguishing investments that can support optional income elections from products that lock participants into an annuity. Fees, access, portability, and participant understanding all enter the evaluation. The speakers are vendors and consultants with offerings in the space, and their framings carry that interest.

Retired FedEx pilots allege that their pension plan still uses life-expectancy assumptions published in 1984, and that the outdated tables shrink the pensions that keep paying a surviving spouse after the retiree dies, with claimed monthly shortfalls of $685.94 for one named pilot and $393.99 for another. On October 15, on remand from the Sixth Circuit, Judge Thomas Parker denied FedEx’s renewed motion to dismiss. The court declined to confine the required comparison to the plan’s normal retirement age of 60 or to read an optional 100% survivor annuity out of the statutory protection, and it let related fiduciary and monitoring theories proceed. Nothing is decided on liability, and the alleged shortfalls are not adjudicated damages.

Specialists from J.P. Morgan, NISA and NEPC tell PLANSPONSOR that the private-assets question for pension plans is one of sizing rather than suitability. A fully funded frozen plan needing 4% to 5% returns and a terminating plan heading toward a risk transfer have very different room for investments that cannot readily be sold, since an annuity purchase consumes liquid assets and can leave the illiquid holdings stranded. The interviews frame allocation size and timing against each plan’s liabilities and liquidity rather than treating private assets as categorically good or bad.

Retirement income terminology can promise more than a product delivers. The Institutional Retirement Income Council wants the industry to distinguish broad retirement income strategies from contractual guarantees, and lifetime income from payments intended to last only a fixed period. PLANSPONSOR reports on Kevin Crain’s proposed vocabulary, which also separates protected income from guaranteed income. A systematic withdrawal program, for example, doesn’t become a promise of income for life just because someone calls it a retirement paycheck. For sponsors evaluating products and participant communications, the useful question is what backs the payment and how long that backing lasts.

Only 34 percent of adults surveyed for Guardian’s Retirement Redefined research said they had actively planned for income at age 80 and beyond, compared with 48 percent who had planned for ages 60 through 69. The research covered more than 2,000 U.S. adults and found uncertainty about which years of retirement would cost the most. More than half hadn’t worked with a financial adviser. Guardian argues that advice and guaranteed income products can help address the gap; that recommendation comes from an insurer with an interest in the market. The practical question for retirement education is broader than an account balance. Participants also need to consider how they’ll pay their bills if retirement lasts much longer than they expected.

MetLife’s 2026 pension risk transfer poll surveyed 250 defined benefit plan sponsors with at least $100 million in assets and goals to reduce pension risk. Among those sponsors, 88 percent are considering transferring obligations to an insurer and 80 percent plan to shed their pension liabilities entirely within five years, and among the sponsors open to an insurer deal, 32 percent expect to complete one within two years. Half name interest rates as the top catalyst, and the share ranking an insurer’s financial strength as the leading selection factor jumped to 65 percent from 33 percent a year ago. October Three’s companion survey of insurers reports that full plan terminations made up 66 percent of these transactions in the first half of 2026, and that deals covering only retirees already receiving benefits made up another 28 percent. Milliman puts the competitive cost of buying annuities for retirees at 99.9 percent of the liabilities recorded for accounting purposes, the fourth straight month below 100 percent. The insurers’ chief complaint lands on sponsors. Incomplete participant data was the top obstacle to onboarding for 72 percent of carriers.

Three research shops land on the same gap. In DCIIA’s survey of pre-retirees, only 22 percent said their workplace plan offered guaranteed lifetime income, and another 29 percent did not know whether theirs does. Participants with access to guaranteed income or financial advice were more likely to report investing in it; 56 percent of those with access said they had invested, 68 percent of those working with an adviser held guaranteed income versus 40 percent of those without one, and the share rose to 86 percent after an in-depth income conversation with that adviser. LIMRA’s companion report has 71 percent of pre-retirees interested in protected lifetime income, with fees, loss of control and locked-up money as the stated holdups. Interest is substantial, but availability, fees and concerns about access to the money all appear to affect uptake.

A Harris Poll of 2,000 moderate-income adults finds 80 percent of Gen X and millennial savers think the economic rules that served older workers have changed, 63 percent expect Social Security to be depleted before they can draw it, and 85 percent want guaranteed income as a core 401(k) feature. The follow-through lags, though. Eighty-six percent of those familiar with annuities find them appealing, 53 percent find them too complex, and just 3 percent expect annuities to carry them in retirement. Athene, which sells annuities, commissioned the survey.

Consultants at October Three, J.P. Morgan Asset Management and Russell Investments describe the same change in client conversations. With average corporate pension funding at 99 percent this year, up from 77 percent in 2008 by Russell’s tally of public filings, employers with fully funded pension plans are asking how to use them rather than how to wind them down. The options include reopening frozen plans, improving benefits, and applying surplus to shore up an acquired company’s pension, and some employers are watching for legislation that would let surplus move into the 401(k) plan. For a decade the standard endgames were keeping a frozen plan quietly invested in bonds or terminating it by buying annuities. Neither is the automatic answer anymore.

The order list issued Monday, October 5, on the opening day of the term, denied review in four cases benefits lawyers were watching. Zavislak v. Netflix leaves standing a Ninth Circuit ruling that the service contracts between Netflix’s health plan and its administrators aren’t plan documents a participant can demand under ERISA’s disclosure rules. McLean v. Delta Air Lines ends former pilots’ effort to revive a suit claiming Delta pushed them out over military leave, leaving the Eleventh Circuit’s dismissal in place. Gasper v. EIDP closes a retiree’s challenge to a reduction of his monthly annuity, with Justice Alito recused. And in United Airlines v. Kincannon, the Court declined to review the class certification United challenged in a suit by employees placed on unpaid leave after receiving religious exemptions from its COVID-19 vaccine policy, over a noted vote by Justice Kavanaugh to grant review. The case traveled below as Sambrano v. United Airlines, where the panel affirmed certification of a 2,221-member class over a partial concurrence by Judge Willett questioning whether religious sincerity can ever be a common question. A denial isn’t a ruling on the merits. It leaves each lower court decision in place without endorsing its reasoning.

Fred Barstein argues that guaranteed-income options have struggled to gain ground in 401(k) plans despite 20 years of predictions. Nothing requires them, few sponsors ask for them, and advisers' financial incentives, he argues, can favor rollovers over income products offered inside a plan. He cites T. Rowe Price data that 76 percent of billion-dollar plan sponsors want to retain participant assets while more than 95 percent of smaller plans don't. He predicts adoption will arrive the way target-date funds arrived, through automatic enrollment into a default investment that includes a guaranteed income component, not through persuading participants one at a time.

A pension risk transfer lawsuit will move forward, but not against the employer. In a pension risk transfer, a company hands its pension obligations to an insurer by buying a group annuity, and retired AT&T workers allege the independent fiduciary that ran AT&T's transaction, State Street Global Advisors, imprudently chose Athene, an insurer they say leans heavily on affiliated reinsurance. [Monday's order](https://digest.theinnerfirm.com/docs/piercy-v-att-order-2026-09-28.pdf) adopts the magistrate judge's recommendation: the prudence claim against SSGA survives dismissal, while every claim against AT&T itself stays dismissed. On standing, the court held the alleged loss of value is injury enough. Taking the complaint as true at this stage, the retirees were "directly harmed by receiving a riskier and less valuable financial product" than they were entitled to, and no one has to show the insurer is about to fail; whether Athene actually is a riskier provider is the merits fight still to come. On AT&T, terminating a plan is a business decision rather than a fiduciary one under ERISA, the selection was delegated, and there are no allegations AT&T "meddled in the selection process, ignored red flags, or failed in their monitoring obligations."

Kellanova and FedEx are asking the Supreme Court to hear disputes over how pension plans calculate benefits that continue paying a surviving spouse. The question is whether plans must use reasonable, up-to-date assumptions about life expectancy or can rely on the assumptions written into their plan documents. [Kellanova's petition](https://digest.theinnerfirm.com/docs/kellanova-cert-petition-2026-09-14.pdf) and [FedEx's companion petition](https://digest.theinnerfirm.com/docs/fedex-v-watt-cert-petition-2026-09-14.pdf), both filed September 14, come from a single divided Sixth Circuit decision holding that these spousal annuities must be calculated with reasonably accurate, modern mortality data even where the plan document specifies older tables. The Eleventh Circuit reads the statute the same way, while the D.C. Circuit treats the calculation as pure math under whatever assumptions the plan states. The petitions lean hard on the stakes. Defined benefit plans hold nearly $3 trillion and pay out over $250 billion a year, older mortality tables remain common in plan documents, and settlements in these suits have run from $10 million at CITGO to $59.2 million at Raytheon. Both sets of respondents have waived their right to respond unless the Court requests a response.

The actuarial-equivalence cases keep converting into pension increases. In Whetstone v. Howard University, No. 1:23-cv-02409 (D.D.C. Sept. 18, 2026), Judge Loren L. AliKhan preliminarily approved a $1.3 million class settlement covering roughly 1,788 retirees and beneficiaries of Howard's frozen pension plan affected by annuity conversions computed with a 1984 unisex mortality table and a 7 percent interest rate. The named plaintiff's numbers show the theory in miniature. His single life annuity was $680.50 a month, the plan's conversion paid $584.73, and he alleged that Treasury-based assumptions would have produced $602.72, a difference of $17.99 every month. If finally approved, the settlement would provide permanent monthly increases and retroactive payments. The settlement reflects uncertainty about how the legal claims would fare. Whether ERISA's actuarial-equivalence requirement imposes a reasonableness test remains unsettled, with the Sixth Circuit's Kellogg decision on one side and a district-court split behind it. The parties must propose dates for a final fairness hearing on or after December 18.

No case of the week this week; as the editors put it, the federal courts “finally took a breather.” The nugget that stopped us comes from Gail W.-S. v. United Healthcare, a District of Utah residential mental health treatment case. Per YEW's write-up, Judge Shelby awarded about $61,700 in fees at $600 an hour, plus roughly $88,500 in prejudgment interest at Utah's 10 percent statutory rate on about $103,000 in benefits. The interest nearly matches the benefit, and the court observed that “the insurance industry appears to need a strong push.” Also noted: a QDRO, the domestic-relations order that divides retirement benefits at divorce, submitted nine years late arrived too late to move a survivor annuity that had already vested in a second spouse (Gray v. DTE), and the Eastern District of New York joined the Second Circuit line holding a power of attorney cannot give an out-of-network provider standing to sue (Karkare v. Estee Lauder).

The update counts twelve pension risk transfer suits filed in 2024, one in 2025, and none so far in 2026: thirteen cases consolidated into ten, six dismissed, three surviving motions to dismiss, one of those only by a magistrate judge's recommendation not yet adopted, and one awaiting a ruling. Its two new developments cut in opposite directions. In Dow v. Lumen Technologies, the District of Colorado dismissed on September 1 for lack of standing, applying Thole v. U.S. Bank the way most courts have: participants who have received every promised dollar cannot show actual or imminent harm from the Athene annuity swap. In Piercy v. AT&T, a Massachusetts magistrate judge recommended on August 31 allowing the amended complaint to proceed against the independent fiduciary that selected Athene, writing that the standing analysis in Thole “has little direct bearing on PRT cases.” Related standing questions are now before appellate courts in the Lockheed Martin and Bristol-Myers Squibb cases, where the Department of Labor and a state coalition have filed in support of the sponsors.

One CPI month remains and the projections have stabilized. Milliman projects a $25,500 elective deferral limit for 401(k), 403(b), and 457 plans, up $1,000, with an $8,500 catch-up and an $11,750 super catch-up for ages 60 to 63. The defined contribution annual additions cap lands at $75,000, the defined benefit maximum annuity at $300,000, the compensation limit at $375,000, and the HCE threshold at $170,000. The forecast runs on actual fiscal-year CPI through August 31, with trailing CPI-U at 3.4 percent, leaving one month of data between these projections and the official figures the IRS typically announces in late October or early November.

After House Democratic leadership built an August 31 press conference around affordability—groceries, gas, healthcare—the Insured Retirement Institute wrote to argue that retirement belongs on the list. The letter distills IRI's broader agenda to four asks: an auto-IRA mandate for employers without plans plus a triennial re-enrollment safe harbor and eligibility at 18; wider guaranteed lifetime income access, including annuities inside QDIAs and expanded QLAC eligibility; collective investment trusts for 403(b) plans; and simplified rollovers with in-service distributions to individual retirement annuities at 50.

Dismissed with prejudice, and a clean illustration of the meaningful benchmark standard doing its work. Participants in Ameritas' own $779 million 401(k) plan attacked the fees under the in-house group annuity contract, alleging the plan would have paid $10.56 million in 2021 if charges ran at half the contract's 2.5 percent and 0.5 percent caps. The court called that arithmetic purely speculative: the complaint pleaded contractual maximums, never actual fees, and its comparator, aggregate Brightscope/ICI industry averages, was the same benchmark the Eighth Circuit rejected in Barrett and Matousek because it says nothing about comparable services. The loyalty and monitoring claims fell as repackaged imprudence, and an informal request to amend, made in a brief rather than by motion, was denied.

The proposed prudence safe harbor would have fiduciaries read and critically review the documents behind common defined contribution investments, and the participant disclosure rules already require translating those terms so an average participant can understand them. Toth argues both duties quietly assume the documents are readable, a standard that has never applied to collective investment trust participation agreements or group annuity contracts, and that layered products can stack terms on terms until they become nearly unmanageable. With more than 10 trillion dollars in 401(k) assets, he writes, the old assumption that plans are sophisticated investors who need no readable documents will simply fail, and once the rule is final the burden of fixing it belongs to the product developers.

Fidelity's survey of 1,311 plan sponsors finds 41% now want their adviser to hold full discretion over the investment menu, up from 36% last year, and 89% plan to add investment options within a year. Half are weighing a replacement of their target date funds, with versions carrying embedded annuities or stable value drawing the most interest, and the help sponsors most want from advisers is on legislative and fiduciary issues.

A Massachusetts federal magistrate judge has recommended dismissal of the pension risk transfer suit against AT&T for a second time, finding the transfer was a settlor decision and that AT&T validly delegated annuity provider selection to State Street. One claim survives the recommendation, that State Street did not act with the required independence.

A settlement milestone rather than a new ruling. The court in Hoak v. Plan Administrator of the Plans of NCR Corp. preliminarily approved the $47.7 million deal for roughly 189 former NCR executives whose top hat plan annuities were converted to discounted lump sums, moving the long-litigated case to a final fairness hearing in November.

While the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) establishes baseline disclosure requirements, a well drafted SPD will go beyond those basic requirements and can play a much broader role in plan administration.

Mercer's GRIST desk tallies the pension risk transfer docket after Schoen v. ATI: four district courts have now dismissed PRT challenges for lack of standing while four have let them proceed, with the DOL filing amicus briefs on the sponsor side and noting that no annuity selected in a risk transfer has defaulted in thirty years. The Konya and Doherty appeals are positioned to resolve the split.

A Pennsylvania federal court dismissed a class action challenging ATI's $1.5 billion pension risk transfer to Athene, holding under Thole that retirees whose monthly benefits remain unchanged lack standing, and that the alleged risk of future harm was too speculative. The decision deepens the district-court split over Athene-related de-risking suits, with standing rejected in Schoen, Camire, and Bueno but sustained in Konya and Doherty, both now on interlocutory appeal to the Fourth and Second Circuits. Nixon Peabody's ERISA litigation team advises sponsors to document annuity-provider selection under the DOL's six-factor guidance before closing, since no court has yet reached the fiduciary merits on a developed record.

Watkins applies his terminal-wealth breakeven framework to in-plan annuities, arguing that fiduciaries weighing guaranteed-income options should quantify what participants trade away for the guarantee rather than rest on qualitative prudence claims.

The DOL’s proposed prudence safe harbor regulations have pretty much made it “table stakes” for some responsible person somewhere to read and understand any annuity contracts on behalf of the plan which are provided as part of any DC lifetime income program.

On June 15, 2026, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (“PBGC”) issued an opinion addressing whether an annuity buyout that reduces active headcount by 20% or more would trigger a reportable event.

Modern portfolio construction has historically emphasized maximizing expected returns for a given level of risk.

Questions of portability and flexibility for both plan sponsors and participants can impede adding guaranteed retirement income offerings.

A Nationwide survey found that, following the past year’s market volatility, 60% of advisers are more likely to recommend guaranteed income solutions.

Incorporating guaranteed income into this already popular product presents a cost-effective, ‘pension-like’ strategy.

However, when you look at it closely, especially in relation to the selection of any of these innovative DC lifetime income programs, you can see its relevance to the analyst, as least requiring they know something about it.

As U.S. financial firms push toward embedding life annuities in 401(k) plans, it is useful to assess the risks, as well as the gains, associated with making annuitization the default distribution option.

The Labor Department filed an amicus brief with a federal appellate court addressing the standards for offloading defined benefit plan liabilities through pension risk transfers. The filing gives sponsors a first official read on how DOL views the safest available annuity analysis in the current PRT litigation wave.

One of the key fiduciary roles in the assessment of any DC lifetime income program process necessarily involves whether, and how, the plan or the vendor accommodates any required spousal consent rules related to the payout of annuities.

NCR Corp. has settled a class action lawsuit for almost $48 million. The five former executives and their spouses who filed the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) suit claimed that the software company failed to provide them with lifetime annuity payments, contrary to its promises.

Jim Watkins’ recent article on fiduciary prudence protocols is one of the best practical guides I have seen for investment committees. It is written as a roadmap for plan sponsors who genuinely want to satisfy ERISA’s prudence requirements before selecting an investment.

F.4th —-, 2026 WL 2084784 (7th Cir. July 20, 2026), a suit for ERISA benefits, the Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the University of Chicago, its two Section 403(b) retirement plans, and TIAA, the plans’ recordkeeper, holding that a power of attorney lacking express authority to waive spousal annuity rights could not effect the change.

Over the past several years I’ve worked as an investment expert with ERISA plaintiff law firms helping investigate and file more than 40 fixed annuity excessive fee and prohibited transaction lawsuits. Just Scratching the Surface.

For more than a decade, the Department of Labor’s participant fee disclosure regulation under ERISA Section 404(a)(5) has been promoted as the cornerstone of transparency in defined contribution plans.

Background Under ERISA section 4043, defined benefit plan administrators must notify PBGC when certain “reportable events” occur. One of those events is a reduction in the active participant headcount.

Participants can select income features and turn a portion of their retirement savings into an annuity contract.

Fewer financial worries and increased longevity were among the benefits reported by Chilean retirees surveyed about guaranteed income.

and what trustees can do to lower administrative costs.

LIMRA finds that many workers have thought about retirement income but spent little time planning for it. In the survey, 88% have thought about income, yet 76% spent five hours or less on planning in the past year, and only 40% worked with a professional. Those who did reported feeling prepared at 77% versus 47% without, an association the research does not establish as causal. About three-quarters want education on protected income, and a quarter expect such products to cover essentials.

Cerulli’s new defined contribution research finds that putting a retirement income product on the menu doesn’t mean participants will use it or understand it. Participants want several things that can be difficult to deliver in a single product. 46 percent of participants want to withdraw money any time, 39 percent want a guaranteed monthly check that outlasts their savings, 40 percent want a detailed personal plan to follow and 31 percent want to keep changing investments. Cerulli’s conclusion is that no single product satisfies that mix, so sponsors may need two or three income options per menu, recordkeepers need infrastructure that actually supports them, and most pre-retirees won’t make these decisions without an advisor. 70 percent of recordkeepers told Cerulli that improving retiree distribution support is now an organizational priority.

Kevin Crain of the Institutional Retirement Income Council argues the industry’s own vocabulary is a barrier to retirement income adoption, citing research in which 72 percent of respondents wanted an annuity presented as payments for spending but only 21 percent wanted the identical product presented as an investment. His proposed language framework treats retirement income as a category rather than a product, and draws hard lines the marketplace currently blurs. Guaranteed income requires a contractual guarantee, protected income does not mean guaranteed, and a systematic withdrawal program cannot be sold as a paycheck for life unless it is built to last a lifetime with a disclosed guarantee. Crain, a former recordkeeper executive, says most of the jargon originated with recordkeepers and providers, and points to the Social Security claiming-age terminology bill awaiting signature as evidence that even entrenched language can be standardized.

BlackRock’s Future of Wealth report surveys 1,067 affluent and high-net-worth women alongside 409 advisers, 84 percent of them male, and finds the two groups describing different clients. Women rank growing wealth, preserving wealth and creating retirement income as their top priorities; advisers guessed preservation, supporting family and life transitions, and ranked growing wealth eighth. The biggest disconnect is where the money came from. 79 percent of the women say salary and career earnings built their wealth, while 63 percent of advisers assume inheritance and 62 percent assume marriage or partnership. With women projected to control $34 trillion in U.S. investable assets by 2030, BlackRock argues the workplace, with its equity compensation, plan savings and executive benefits, is where engagement starts.

The Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation has relaunched its opinion letter program, giving employers, plan sponsors, unions, and practitioners a channel to ask the agency's Office of the General Counsel how Title IV of ERISA applies to specific situations. Requests may be submitted anonymously through counsel, opinions bind only the requester, and the program excludes matters in litigation, coverage determinations, and issues pending in rulemaking. The agency's first opinion letter since 2002 issued in June, finding that annuity buyouts of frozen plan participants do not trigger section 4043 reporting.

Cash-balance plans lead the way in groundswell of support for offering a more meaningful approach to generating retirement income for cash-strapped workers.

Decumulation, the spend-down phase after retirement, is where target-date competition has moved, and sponsors field the how-much-can-I-withdraw question whether or not their lineup has an answer. Capital Group’s new withdrawal guidelines are one vendor’s answer, a fixed approach starting around 4% to 4.5% of the initial balance and adjusting for inflation, and a variable approach taking around 5% to 5.5% of the prior year-end balance. The guidance comes from the firm’s modeling of 100,000 market paths over 30 years, and modeled sustainability is not a promise. The firm is also adding retirement-income wording to the names of its 2010 through 2025 in-retirement funds, not the entire target-date series.

Two research streams point the same direction. In Guardian’s June survey of 2,082 U.S. adults, 34% said they had planned how to receive income at age 80 and beyond, compared with 48% who had planned for income during their 60s, and 75% worried about unexpected events affecting their retirement savings. Cerulli’s participant research finds 46% want flexibility, about 40% want a concrete action plan, 39% want guarantees and 31% want investment choice. The shared conclusion is that no single income solution fits every participant, and that translating balances into income is where help is wanted.

Participants may trust their employer’s retirement plan without wanting to leave their money there forever. An Allspring and Defined Contribution Institutional Investment Association survey of more than 1,500 respondents found that nearly a third wanted guaranteed income benefits in their workplace plan, while 70 percent placed greater importance on access and control. Adviser use increased sharply as retirement approached, and participants working with advisers were more likely to move assets out of the plan. Allspring’s analysis urges sponsors to think explicitly about whether they want to retain retirees’ assets or help participants move into another arrangement. Low fees, useful guidance and a range of income options matter to that choice. The survey describes competing participant preferences; it doesn’t establish that an in-plan annuity or a rollover is the right answer for everyone.

TIAA’s “Retirement in the Age of AI and GLP-1s” survey polled 1,000 adults through KRC Research in late July. On longevity, 53 percent worry more about outliving their savings than about underspending, and 43 percent doubt traditional retirement planning accounts for lives that stretch into the 90s. On what AI will do to their finances, 27 percent expect breakthrough treatments to raise costs, 22 percent expect efficiency to lower them, 20 percent expect little effect, and the rest can’t say. Separately, a third are seriously concerned AI could threaten their earning potential before they retire, a worry that peaks with Generation Z. TIAA’s read is that these are all longevity problems, and its consultants’ advice to employers is to weigh guaranteed lifetime income in plan design on par with fees and the investment menu.

TIAA's survey of 1,000 adults finds 53 percent worry more about outliving their savings than about underspending in retirement, and 83 percent carry financial concerns about living longer. Younger respondents were more worried about AI. Forty-two percent of Generation Z respondents are extremely or very concerned AI will hurt their career and retirement savings, against 28 percent of Generation X and baby boomer respondents combined. TIAA, which sells annuities, argues that guaranteed retirement income can help address those concerns.

Proposition 42 on California's November ballot targets taxes on the value of retirement accounts and other personal property, not the income taxes Californians already pay on withdrawals. The measure would amend the state constitution to prohibit any new state tax on the ownership of personal property, meaning everything people own other than real estate, and would bar certain retroactive taxes, nullifying any conflicting tax enacted after January 1, 2026. It responds to asset-tax proposals floated in the legislature in 2019, 2022, and 2024, none of which became law. A study commissioned by the measure's supporters estimates that a hypothetical 1 percent annual tax on retirement assets, if one were ever enacted, could cut retirement income by 20 to 37 percent over a career and push retirement back three to seven years. Supporters have raised $73.8 million for the measure against about $362,000 on the other side.

Schroders' 2026 U.S. Retirement Survey puts the number workers think they need at $5,094 a month, and finds more than half of nonretired Americans worried about outliving their assets. But many have no strategy for turning balances into a paycheck. Workers need help turning their savings into income that lasts.

Saving for retirement and spending in retirement are different skills. Vanguard's new “Beyond RMDs” research, the first installment of its How America Retires 2026 series, surveyed nearly 1,500 clients between 60 and 80 with $100,000 to $1 million saved, and only 8 percent took regular withdrawals to cover everyday spending. More than half made irregular withdrawals for specific purposes, and 39 percent were waiting for required minimum distributions to force the issue. Among respondents who had not tapped their retirement accounts, nearly half were covering their living expenses solely with Social Security. The misunderstandings are specific: of those planning to take only RMDs, 29 percent thought the minimums were the government's recommendation for a safe withdrawal amount, and 15 percent did not realize they could take more. Vanguard's modeling says a hypothetical retiree with $360,000 could draw about $17,000 a year on top of Social Security. The report's own summary: “The American retirement system has succeeded in helping workers build wealth. The next frontier is helping retirees use it.”

A contributed case for retiring past returns as the default fund screen. The persistence data is old news told well, since only 17.2 percent of top-quartile domestic equity funds over the five years ending 2020 stayed top-quartile for the next five, per S&P Dow Jones. The alternative offered is capture spread, upside capture minus downside capture. One 2021 study found funds in the highest quintile beat the lowest by 720 basis points the following year, and Vanguard research this year points the same direction. The underlying math is loss asymmetry, because a fund that gives up less in drawdowns needs less of the rebound. The useful part is the question the piece hands committees. Ask how a return was produced, not just what it was.

A recap of recent Mercer and Broadridge webinar discussions on why employers offer retirement plans at all. Benefits rank among the top reasons workers join and stay, sponsoring a plan is business strategy rather than administration, and a plan left unattended becomes a problem. The gap the panelists kept returning to is confidence, with only 57% of participants believing their savings will last a lifetime.

Public-sector workers who cut back hours for caregiving likely do not know what it costs them at retirement, a new Pew study finds. A career worked at 20 hours a week produces roughly half the annual retirement income of a full-time career in a defined contribution plan, and the reductions run steeper still in defined benefit plans.

Behavioral biases reduce income product usage that otherwise could help participants during the decumulation stage. However, there are steps recordkeepers and sponsors can take to account for those biases, according to a new report.

Twenty years after the Pension Protection Act made target-date funds the default, Sway Research maps a $5.3 trillion TDF market shifting toward collective investment trusts and retirement-income features.

A new IRIC white paper argues sponsors can help participants break the psychological barrier between saving and spending. The behavioral half of the decumulation problem.

Global retirement experts suggest investment options, advice, and artificial intelligence can all help with drawing down defined contribution savings, with lessons from decumulation designs abroad.

WTW 2026 Defined Contribution Survey report finds employers are asking defined contribution plans to do more than they were originally designed for, prompting greater focus on retirement income, AI, governance, and measurable participant outcomes.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) does not require multiemployer pension plans to use actuarial assumptions to calculate withdrawal liability adopted before a certain deadline.

The United States Supreme Court recently held in M&K Employee Solutions, LLC et al. v. Trustees of the IAM National Pension Fund that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”)

Social Security benefits will rise 3.6% for 2027, about $75 a month on average. For employees approaching retirement, that announcement offers a useful opening to discuss how Social Security fits alongside workplace savings. PLANSPONSOR encourages general education without turning employer communications into individualized advice. A percentage increase is easier to use when employees understand what it changes in their retirement income and what it doesn’t resolve about their longer-term savings needs.

Patrick Hawkins sued Wells Fargo and its short-term disability plan over denied benefits, and separately claims he was fired for pursuing those benefits and for providing information to the Labor Department. Wells Fargo’s arbitration agreement covers employment claims broadly but carves out ‘claims for benefits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.’ In a September 28 opinion, Magistrate Judge Andrew Edison in Galveston read the carve-out narrowly. The claim seeking the unpaid disability benefits stays in court, and both sides agreed it should. The claim that Wells Fargo fired him for pursuing those benefits, brought under ERISA section 510, goes to arbitration along with his disability discrimination claims, because it attacks the termination rather than seeking benefits. The opinion collects decisions from other courts reading similar language the same way. Anyone who assumed an ERISA carve-out keeps every ERISA claim in court should reread their arbitration agreement with that distinction in mind.

The Senate passed the bipartisan Claiming Age Clarity Act by unanimous consent, sending it to the President. If signed, the bill would require the Social Security Administration to retire its claiming-age vocabulary: early eligibility age would become minimum monthly benefit age, full retirement age and normal retirement age would become standard monthly benefit age, and references to age 70 would carry the label maximum monthly benefit age, with the term delayed retirement credit dropped entirely. Sponsors Lloyd Smucker and Don Beyer argue the current labels nudge people toward claiming at 62 even though waiting can raise a monthly benefit by more than 75 percent. Plan sponsors and recordkeepers that echo Social Security terminology in retirement education materials may want to update their language to match.

Without changes in law, the Congressional Budget Office projects that Social Security's retirement trust fund will run out in mid-2032, leaving incoming revenue insufficient to pay scheduled benefits in full. The [updated projections](https://www.cbo.gov/publication/62556), released September 17, put the cut at that point at 26 percent, deeper than the 22 percent in the trustees' June report, and widening to 40 percent by the end of the century. Against today's average retired-worker benefit of $2,087.52 a month, a 26 percent cut is about $543 a month, more than $6,500 a year. Even the standard fallback, merging the retirement fund with the healthier disability fund, buys one year and still leaves a projected 23 percent cut. For plan sponsors this is an education problem before it is a policy one. Workers modeling retirement income on full scheduled benefits are counting on payments current law cannot fully fund past 2032, which makes the workplace plan's income projections, and the assumptions behind them, worth a check.

Natixis finds workers increasingly worried about funding their retirement on their own. The three-pillar model of government, employer, and personal savings increasingly reads to participants as a one-pillar model, with a Social Security trust fund projected to be depleted by 2032 feeding the worry, and 41 percent say inflation is "killing their retirement dreams." Natixis's Dave Goodsell: "We really need a new model or a new methodology to talk about and explain where retirement income is going to come from."

Cash balance plans grew by 1,025% over two decades, according to an Ascensus report.

The first half of 2026 has seen major litigation developments in cases concerning the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), including decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits.

In a recent PLANSPONSOR article, “DOL Investment Safe Harbor May Not Do Much for Retirement Income,” Groom principal Kevin Walsh discussed the Department of Labor’s proposed safe harbor for fiduciaries evaluating retirement income investments.

The proposed rule does not give fiduciaries a ‘stamp of approval’ to innovate, one expert says.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently declined to rehear its decision vacating certification of a mandatory class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(1) in Trauernicht v. Genworth Financial Inc. The Court held that fiduciary-breach claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of

As discussed in a previous Holland & Knight alert, there has been an emerging wave of Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) class actions challenging employers' tobacco-free wellness programs.

Memorial Hermann Health System, a Texas nonprofit hospital system, has settled a suit under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) relating to 401(k) plan fees and fund choices.

VAPPs can help funded pension plans balance risk, support retirement income and create a more sustainable path forward.

insurance that protects your plan’s participants if someone who handles plan money steals or misuses those funds.

How rising interest rates, evolving fixed income opportunities, personalized investing, and retirement income needs are driving fiduciaries toward a more balanced approach that combines the strengths of active and passive management to improve participant outcomes.

This proposed rule sets forth a new, additional safe harbor for group health plan administrators to use electronic media (e.g., email or web portal) to furnish documents and information to participants and beneficiaries of plans subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).

As market conditions grow more complex, retirement plan fiduciaries are rethinking the traditional active-versus-passive debate.

As the conversation around retirement income continues to evolve, Lincoln Financial’s Matt Condos says the opportunity is not to introduce something entirely new, but to extend what has already worked

They really should be fully understood by the fiduciaries involved in the selection and maintenance any lifetime income program, especially if one is attempting to comply with the DOL’s proposed prudence safe harbor.