A digest of timely information and insight about finance, investing, and retirement.

Cadillac Tax Delayed Again | PLANSPONSORThe congressional bill that ended the government shutdown and provided funding until February 8 also included another two-year delay in the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) excise tax on high-cost health plans, known as the Cadillac tax. The Consolidated Appropriations Act, passed in 2016, included a two-year delay of the 40 percent excise tax, making it effective in 2020. The new bill pushes the effective date to 2022.

The Argument for Ditching the 401(k) and Starting Over |Bloomberg ViewThere have been some modest attempts in the past few years to shore up and fill in gaps in this country’s haphazard system of retirement savings. These attempts — federal myRA accounts, state-run retirement accounts, and fiduciary standards for retirement account providers — have also all been shut down, rolled back or delayed since Donald Trump moved into the White House a year ago. So it may seem like a curious time to talk about tossing aside the current system of 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts in favor of an entirely new retirement savings system, as Teresa Ghilarducci and Tony James do in their book, “Rescuing Retirement: A Plan to Guarantee Retirement Security for All Americans,” which after an earlier iteration in 2016 is now out in hardcover.

Still no action yet on Kentucky pension reform |The Morehead NewsThe 2018 Kentucky General Assembly is now one-third of the way toward its constitutionally limited 60 days to pass legislation — and still there is no pension bill in sight. Ask nearly any member of the General Assembly — Democrat or Republican, House member or senator — what they’ve heard about a possible pension bill and when it might be filed, and odds are that person will say he or she hasn’t heard anything. The holdup on pension reform — originally Gov. Matt Bevin and Republican legislative leaders hoped to pass a bill in special session last fall — is also delaying work on the two-year budget, Senate Minority Caucus Chair Dorsey Ridley said.

Why Part Time Work Doesn’t Always Work In Retirement |Forbes
The idea of working a few hours or days a week in retirement has become an increasingly popular planning tool because of the possibilities of using it to supplement retirement income, stay connected to the work world, and yet have the flexibility to play golf, enjoy the grand kids, and other retirement based activities. However, many people base their plans for working part-time in retirement on limited knowledge and experience or a short-term series of events that are unlikely to happen again.

Retirement Risks Keep Rising, and This Is Why |Bloomberg ViewHalf of working-age households in the U.S. were on track in 2016 to be able to maintain their standard of living in retirement, according to the National Retirement Risk Index report out this month from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Thanks mainly to rising home values, that’s better than in 2010 or 2013. But it still means that half of working-age households aren’t prepared for retirement, up from just 30.4 percent in 1989.

Guess How Many Gen Xers and Baby Boomers Have No Retirement Savings | The Motley Fool
We’re all told time and time again how crucial it is to save for the future. But unfortunately, a large chunk of workers in their late 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60s continue to put their retirement at risk. In fact, 41 percent of Gen Xers and 42 percent of Baby Boomers have yet to start building their nest eggs, according to data compiled by Comet. And that’s obviously a lot scarier for the latter group, since they’re the ones with the least amount of time to play catch-up.