We must educate plan participants that they will need to be responsibile for their own retirement. Unless they wish to work until they drop. This education must include developing a budget and following the budget.

1. Household wealth is vanishing.Retirement is the largest reason for families to save. Declines in household wealth are thus drops in retirement income security. Household wealth was $12.4 trillion (in 2011 dollars) lower in March 2011 than in June 2007, the wealth peak before the crisis.2. Retirement standards of living will slip. More than half of all families will not be able to maintain their standard of living in retirement. The share of families under the age of 65 who were not yet retired but who could not maintain their standard of living in retirement stood at 51 percent in 2009, the last year complete data were available.

3. Fewer employees are covered by a retirement plan at work. The share of all private-sector workers who participate in a retirement plan at work, either a defined-benefit pension or a defined-contribution retirement savings plan such as a 401(k) plan, dropped to 39.6 percent in 2009, down from 41.5 percent in 2007 and from 44.4 percent in 2000.

4. Balances in 401(k) plans are still well below their pre-crisis levels. The median account balance for all people with 401(k)s was $17,794 in 2009, down from $18,942 in 2007 and down from a peak of $19,926 in 2004.

With proper plan design your company retirement plan can be seen as a true benefit. We can provide a pension fund like plan for employees which would benefit both the participants and the plan sponsors.

Please comment or call to discuss how this affect you and your employees.