In 2009, more than 7,500 401(k) plans were terminated in the large plan market, forever doomed to carry cash boxes and locks tied to chains around their ghastly visages for eternity.
In 2010, that number rose to almost 10,000.
I'm an optimist. I like to believe in the best of people and of our institutions, so when I started writing this blog I was hearted by the growth: 500 more 401(k)s were created in 2010 versus 2009. A beacon of hope in a dark economy!
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Imagine my dismay when I saw that those 500 were offset by the loss of 2,500 more.
And that loss – did those companies go out of business, leaving Tiny Tim to hardscrabble for a mere morsel on Christmas Eve? Or did the plan sponsors – those Scrooges – stay in business only to cut out benefits? How will Bob Cratchit maintain fiscal solvency in retirement?
This is an unsustainable rate. I have been visited by the Ghost of 5500s Yet to Come, and he showed me a grave marked "the American retirement" before I woke up from the nightmare.
So I ran to my window and asked the street urchin outside what day it was, and he said "it's the 2011 form 5500 filing deadline," so I had him run down to the market to buy a plump goose.
And so I say to everyone in the benefits community:
"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead… But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me." –Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
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