Richard Quinn

I HAVE A PENSION, a 401(k) plan and other investments, and no debt. I worked more than 50 years to accumulate what I have. Still, I realize I am fortunate.
That brings me to a list of advice for seniors that’s now making the rounds on the internet. I found it fascinating—and disturbing. The list is presented for “those of us who are between 65 and death, i.e. old.” Many people who have read the list buy into the philosophy behind it.

MY FATHER WAS AGE 19 and my mother was 11 when the Great Depression started. They were married in 1942 and I was born in late 1943. Their view of money matters was surely tempered by their life experience.
They had no investments to speak of and always kept what little money they had in a checking account. They would never borrow and didn’t know what a credit card was.
Many years ago, I convinced my mother to buy 75 shares of the company I worked for—a large utility.

WHO’S YOUR WORST financial enemy? Got a mirror? For millions of American workers, their employee benefits play a significant role in their financial life—and yet this noncash portion of their compensation is often undervalued, overlooked and misused.
I designed and managed employee benefits for nearly 50 years. During those years, I tried every form of communication I could think of to get employees to pay attention to their benefits. I retired with a sense of failure.

A FEW YEARS BACK, I was conducting a retirement planning seminar. At one point, I talked about survivor benefits under our company’s pension plan. As I outlined the benefits, I noticed a strange look on one woman’s face. She was the spouse of an employee.
A few minutes later, I spoke about health benefits, explaining that a surviving spouse was required to pay 100% of the premium. Upon hearing that, the woman took a rolled-up newspaper and began beating her husband about the head.

IS WHAT YOU’RE PAID what you’re really paid? Probably not. The compensation that you don’t see each payday has a tremendous impact on your financial security and your future standard of living—and should affect how much you save and how you invest.
Defined benefit pension plans can be the most valuable form of noncash compensation. Health benefits for active and retired employees are a close second—especially so because they’re tax-free compensation (and hence a huge revenue loss for the federal government).

DESPITE RHETORIC TO the contrary, Social Security isn’t going anywhere. Today’s workers will eventually collect benefits. Today’s seniors will continue to receive the benefits they’re entitled to.
But that doesn’t alter the fact that the program faces fiscal problems, is misunderstood, and is used as a political tool to mislead and scare people, especially seniors who depend heavily on Social Security benefits. I regularly scan social media to better understand how everyday Americans view Social Security.

IF WE WON’T SAVE for the future, should somebody do it for us? Everyone knows Americans don’t save; last year, we managed a miserable 3.4% of personal disposable income. That’s not going to cut it for either financial emergencies or retirement.
We can’t even get many workers to save sufficiently to obtain an employer match in their 401(k) plan. That’s free money left on the table. According to separate calculations by Alight Solutions and Fidelity Investments,

TIME VALUE OF MONEY, asset class, diversification, dollar-cost averaging: This is the language of investment professionals. But it isn’t the language of everyday Americans, including those saving for retirement in their employer’s 401(k) plan.
Trust me, I know. During my nearly 30 years overseeing 401(k) plans, including providing financial education to participants, it became clear to me that using such plans as intended wasn’t easy for most people.
For diversification, employees would often invest in several different mutual funds all focused on a similar collection of U.S.