Most employers report workers delaying retirement as costs bite

PLANADVISER reports Principal's third and final Financial Well-Being Index shows nearly seven in ten employers — 69% — saying workers are postponing retirement over financial security concerns. The survey ran from June 22 through July 13 and covered 1,000 employers ranging from two-person shops to 10,000-employee firms. The reasons named are current pressures, not far-off investment performance: 71% of employers point to inflation and the rising cost of living, 69% to access to affordable health insurance, and 68% to insufficient retirement savings.

Teresa Hassara, Principal's senior vice president for workplace savings and retirement solutions, read the results as an invitation to broaden the service menu. In an email to PLANADVISER, she described an opening to widen the conversation beyond retirement education and toward budgeting, emergency savings, debt and healthcare costs. "When employees feel more confident managing today's financial pressures, they are better positioned to stay engaged with their long-term goals," she said. PLANADVISER notes the findings point to a need for additional financial education and planning support.

The saver-side picture comes from PNC Financial's Pulse Survey of its defined-contribution plan participants. More than half — 52% — said rising costs had changed the size of their contributions. The follow-through is thinner: 24% planned to seek financial guidance, while 38% sat neutral and another 38% said no. The questions those participants bring to PNC educators are about cash rather than markets: should they raise plan contributions, pay down debt first, or hold extra cash amid ongoing uncertainty?

That spread — 52% feeling the pinch, 24% planning to ask for help — is the data point plan advisers should work from. The two surveys measure different sides of the same relationship: Principal asked employers, PNC asked plan participants. They land in the same place. The conversation worth opening is the one about budgeting and debt, because it is the one participants are already starting themselves. Financial-wellness features built around those questions may do more for plan health than the next menu redesign.