401(k) Annuity Assets Reach $44 Billion as 76% of Savers Fear Less Secure Retirement
Updated
Updated · CNBC · Jun 25
401(k) Annuity Assets Reach $44 Billion as 76% of Savers Fear Less Secure Retirement
3 articles · Updated · CNBC · Jun 25
Summary
76% of workplace savers said their generation will have less certainty about retirement income than their parents', up from 67% in 2021, according to a new BlackRock survey of 1,312 savers.
$44 billion sat in target-date strategies with annuities at the end of March 2026, up from $25 billion a year earlier, as major firms including BlackRock, Fidelity, Vanguard and TIAA expand lifetime-income options.
Adoption is still limited: just 5% of plan sponsors offer a target-date fund with an annuity and 15% are considering one, while those assets remain less than 1% of the more than $4.8 trillion target-date market.
Women reported greater concern about outliving savings but were less likely to adopt guaranteed-income products, highlighting a gap advisers say may reflect annuities' cost, complexity, liquidity limits and varying payout terms.
Washington is also nudging the market forward, with the Labor Department proposing easier use of lifetime-income strategies in workplace plans and a bipartisan bill that would let workers roll 401(k) assets into qualified annuities.