When lower-income workers have access to a pension plan at work, their eligibility and take-up rates are nearly equivalent to higher-income workers.

Quarter over quarter, cash and security holdings increased 4.2 percent and year-over-year they increased 12.5 percent from $2.836.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Increased fixed and variable annuity sales during the fourth quarter pushed industry-wide sales to $59.3 billion, up 3.1 percent from the prior quarters sales of $57.5 billion and up 17.2 percent from fourth quarter 2012 sales of $50.6 billion.

Women still earn lower wages than men and are more likely to work part-time or take time off to care for their children, parents or disabled relatives, which can further lower their earnings.

A study found that one in three of respondents thought it was very useful to hear an estimate of the monthly retirement income they might expect from their plan and another 49 percent thought it was somewhat useful.

Seventy-one percent of investors surveyed, a majority, said they were go-it-alone investors.

The average participant now invests 60 percent of his account balance in index funds, compared to 30 percent in 2004, in large part because of the growing popularity of index-based target-date funds.

The most important step is to hire a financial advisor who has a lot of experience working in the retirement plan space and a recordkeeper whose focus is retirement plans versus something they do on the side.