Old Aesop really hit the nail on the head with his fable aboutRabbit and Hare. How many different times in life do we see howthis lesson applies? It only makes sense that it also offersinsight into investment strategies. What you may not realizeis that it applies equally well to savings strategies.

The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) recentlypublished a report revealing actual data supporting Aesop'sphilosophy as it pertains to retirement saving. While the amount being saved and appropriate long-terminvesting are obviously important, the data suggests plan sponsorsand public policy wonks might want to emphasize consistency insaving as well.

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EBRI broke down its analysis between workers who had 401(k)accounts at the end of each year in the survey period (2010-2015)and all workers. There are 26.1 million 401(k) participants (“allworkers”) in the EBRI/ICI database. Of those, EBRI classified 7.3million as “consistent participants.” As you might expect,consistent participants tend to be older and have longer tenurecompared to all workers. But that's not all.

Consistent participants are more likely to have larger accountbalances than the average worker. For example, while 41.3 percentof the entire database had balances of less than $10,000, only 12.5percent of the consistent participants had small balances. On theother end of the spectrum, 10.2 percent of all workers had balancesin excess of $200,000 compared to 22 percent of consistentparticipants.

More importantly, consistent participation appears to becorrelated with significant growth in retirement assets. In 2010,the average balance of consistent participants was $74,983. By theend of 2015, it had grown 93.1 percent to $143,436. Contrast thiswith 21.6 percent growth over the same time period for all workers,whose assets grew from $60,329 in 2010 to $73,357 in 2015.

The median asset size numbers offer a starker contrast. Themedian for consistent participants experienced explosive growth of127.8 percent, from $29,156 in 2010 to $66,412 in 2015. While assetsize more than doubled for consistent participants, it actuallylost 5.4 percent for all workers. The median balance for allworkers shrank from $17,686 in 2010 to $16,732 in 2015.

Several factors can influence growth in participant retirementbalances, including contribution levels, withdrawals/loans, andinvestment returns. Do any of these explain the difference betweenconsistent participants and all workers? EBRI rules out investmentreturns when it says, “The asset allocation of the 7.3 million401(k) plan participants in the consistent group was broadlysimilar to the asset allocation of the 26.1 million participants inthe entire year-end 2015 EBRI/ICI 401(k) database.”

That leaves either contributions or withdrawals, both of whichare directly related to participation (i.e., you can't contributeif you don't participate, and failure to participate may be due toprematurely withdrawing funds).

There's plenty of evidence the 401(k) plan has made millionairesof everyday people, but only those people who consistentlyparticipate. Perhaps retirement plan policy should focus on keepingparticipants in the game because, as Aesop taught us, slow andsteady wins the race.