The Surprising New Company Benefit That's Helping Americans Retire Richer

Like it or not, the job of educating Americans about how to manage their money is falling to the corporations they work for—and new research suggests that many of those employers are responding.

Some 83% of companies feel a sense of responsibility for employees’ financial wellness, according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch Workplace Benefits Report, which found the vast majority of large companies are investing in financial education programs. Among other things, companies are using the annual fall benefits re-enrollment period to talk about things like 401(k) deferral rates and asset allocation, and enjoying impressive results.

Workers are responding to other programs too. Another Merrill report found that retirement advice group sessions in the workplace rose 14% last year and that just about all of those sessions resulted in a positive outcome: employees enrolling in a 401(k) plan, increasing contributions, or signing up for more advice. Calls to employer-sponsored retirement education centers rose 17.6% and requests for one-on-one sessions more than doubled.

So a broad effort to educate Americans about money management is under way, including in government and schools—and none too soon. This year, Millennials became the largest share of the workforce. This is a huge generation coming of age with almost no social safety net. These 80 million strong must start saving early if they are going to retire. Given this generation’s love of mobile technology, it’s notable that Merrill found a 46% increase in visits to its mobile financial education platform. That means employers are reaching young workers, who as a group have shown enormous interest in saving.

“There is not a single good reason—none—that should prevent any American from gaining the knowledge and skills needed to build a healthy financial future,” writes Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in a guest blog for the Council for Economic Education. His agency and dozens of nonprofits are pushing for financial education in grades K-12 but have had limited success. Just 17 states require a student to pass a personal finance course to graduate high school.

That’s why it’s critical that corporations take up the battle. Even college graduates entering the workplace generally lack basic personal money management skills. This often translates into lost time and productivity among workers trying to stay afloat in their personal financial affairs. So companies helping employees with financial advice is self serving, as well as beneficial to employees. Some argue it helps the economy as a whole, too, as it lessens the likelihood of another financial crisis linked to poor individual money decisions.