Thursday, February 12, 2015

Retirement Funds Reach New Highs

Assets in U.S. institutional retirement funds reached a new high in 2014, at $22.1 trillion. That's up 9 percent from the previous year, according to Towers Watson’s annual Global Pension Assets Study. How big is that number? Pension assets are now up to 127 percent of GDP  - they're bigger than our entire economy.

The U.S. holds 61 percent of the planet's total pension assets, but the numbers are increasing around the world, too. Global pension assets now amount to 84 percent of the world's GDP, up from 54 percent in 2008.

The study also showed that defined contribution assets - mostly 401(k)-type assets - are now a solid majority of all retirement funds in the U.S. They represent 58 percent of all retirement assets, up from 52 percent in 2004. Globally, defined-benefit assets are still the majority, but that's forecast to change within the next few years.

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