Jack VanDerhei Quotations

I would say that a huge percentage of them who don't already have automatic enrollment would adopt it overnight.

Overconfidence is the word that comes to mind.

Those people frozen into inactivity ... they just need someone to get them started. If you haven't started and won't start because you don't have the financial acumen to do so, pay somebody a couple of hundred bucks to get you on track.

We find there are a lot of people who need to be saving more than they are, if they hope to be able to afford a comfortable retirement.

The trend from defined-benefit to defined-contribution plans has not come because employees have wanted to take on that risk. It's because employers have wanted to get rid of that risk.

The system is set up ... not to help the consumers. It's there to help the regulators.

People typically take a cue from their parents' generation ? which had pension plans and retiree health programs. And they know they're making more money than their parents did.

A lot of today's workers look at today's retirees and say, 'They seem to be in good shape, and I'm making more than Mom and Dad were making, so I should be in good shape, too,'? What they're totally failing to realize is that the generation of people retired today by and large had benefit plans and retiree health plans that are being increasingly cut back today.

It's kind of like watching a glacier move.

It's going to be a good 10 to 15 years into the Baby Boom generation of retirement that it's finally going to hit people that this is no longer a sure thing and they'll have to start planning. Hopefully they'll figure that out when there's still time to do something.

It's clear that people currently working should factor into their retirement planning the long-term trend away from traditional defined benefit pensions. That means people need to be saving more than they are.

The major problem you're going to have is that you're not going to have anything current enough to do anything about. You really are in a no-win situation.