AVENTURA, Fla. – If you’re a plan sponsor hoping for moreguidance from the government on retirement issues, expect a surgereal soon.

New rules are coming on cash-balance pension plans, hybrid plans and lifetime income projections, according to Mark Iwry,Treasury’s deputy assistant secretary on retirement and healthpolicy.

Speaking Tuesday at the Plan Sponsor Council of America meetingin Aventura, Fla., Iwry said the coming guidelines are justpart of what should be a wider effort tohelp “reconstruct” how income security in retirement can beachieved.

“It’s time to move to a more robust use of behavioral strategies,”he said. “Call it 401(k) 3.0.”

Taking defined contribution plans to the next level, he said, canbegin by auto-enrolling any worker, rather than just new hires, whohaven’t elected to sit on the sidelines. Bumping up deferral ratesto 5 percent to 6 percent, rather than 3 percent, is anotheroption, he said, as well as raising contribution levels by 1percent to 2 percent a year.

Many large employers already have taken this approach but fewsmaller companies have.

In part, that’s because smaller employers with lower-incomeworkforces often fear leaving their employees with too little intheir paychecks.

Timing enrollment or escalating deferrals to coincide with a payraise might do the trick, Iwry said. Employers also can helpworkers save more by applying unused sick pay dollars to their401(k) accounts and eliminating enrollment waiting periods.

These tactics are not, of course, new to the DC world. But they dounderscore that employers don’t need to wait for Congress to passnew laws or regulators to issue new rules to help employees achievea more secure future.

It doesn’t hurt, however, when regulators do issue new rules thatcan help.

The Treasury did some of that a bit earlier this summer when itissued rules on longevity annuities that could help protect retirees from outliving theirretirement savings.

For many, increased life expectancy means having to make sure retirementsavings last more than two decades. The final rules on longevityannuities make the deferred-income option more available to 401(k)and IRA markets. Longevity annuities shelter a portion ofretirement savings and distribute the income at an advanced age,typically 80 or 85.

“It’s all about protecting the tail risk,” Iwry said, “thoughonly time will tell whether this will take.”

It will, but isn’t it good to know that sometimes the governmentis working for us, rather than against us?

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