Caterpillar has agreed to pay $16.5 million to settle a lawsuit alleging that its 401k plans charged excessive fees to employees. Cat’s news release says the money, minus attorneys’ fees and costs, will go into the accounts of employees and former…

Last year’s financial crisis didn’t scare workers away from their 401k plans, new data from Charles Schwab show. In retirement plans managed by Schwab, 77 percent of eligible workers participated at the end of 2008, up from 73 percent a year…

All the behavioral theories about workers’ inertia appear to be true. According to a new Government Accountability Office study, participation in 401k plans is boosted significantly when employers add an  automatic-enrollment feature.  The GAO reviewed six other research efforts, which…

When the Government Accountability Office talks about preventing leakage from 401k plans, it isn’t talking about the bear market that siphoned a big gusher of money out of your account. That, presumably, would have been difficult to prevent. Rather, a…

“Stable” may not be the first word you’d use to describe your 401k, but it’s the word David Wray uses. In a news release promoting 401k day, the president of the Profit Sharing/401k Council of America says:

The 401(k) system remains stable in…

Many parts of the tax code are indexed for inflation, and that usually means an annual increase in such figures as the amount you’re allowed to contribute to a 401k. Next year, however, the 401k limit may go down instead…

USA Today had a good summary yesterday of attempts to rein in 401k fees, a subject I’ve followed for a long time. New to me, though, was mention of BrightScope, a website that rates employers’ 401k plans.  It gives each plan a numeric…

Brett Goldstein, who runs a consulting firm called The Pension Department, is petitioning Congress to make a change that he says would help cash-strapped small employers hold on to their 401k plans.  His concern involves top-heavy requirements, which are a highly technical…

For folks fortunate to have an employer match in their 401k plan, failing to contribute would be like passing up free money. That’s a powerful incentive to save. Now, some officials in Washington want more people to have that incentive…

One of the hot new solutions to the retirement-savings problem is the Automatic IRA. (Sometimes it’s also called the Universal IRA, but see yesterday’s post to learn the problems with that name.) There’s one group that doesn’t like it, though:…