A plan to produceretirement income “in virtually any IRA or 401(k) plan” is thesubject of a new study from the Stanford Center on Longevity andthe Society of Actuaries, “Viability of the Spend Safely in RetirementStrategy.”

The strategy, a plan design innovation that defined-contributionplan sponsors can adopt to help older workers decide such things aswhen to retire, how to get access to theirretirement savings once they have and how much it's safe to spendonce they've left the day job behind, is a retirement income menuthat complements the investment menu they should already befamiliar with.

Related: 8 mistakes retirees are making that could harmtheir retirement

“DC plan sponsors are in a perfect position to help their olderworkers who are intimidated by these retirement planningdecisions,” says Steve Vernon, FSA, research scholar at theStanford Center on Longevity and one of the study'scoauthors. “We've demonstrated that plan sponsors can moveahead with implementing retirement income options in their plan,which will help them manage an aging workforce. There are effectivesolutions that are feasible to implement today; there's no need towait for the 'perfect' solution to be invented, which doesn'texist.”

According to the release, the SSiRS consistsof “optimizing Social Security benefits and using the IRSrequirement minimum distribution to generate periodic retirementincome, coupled with a low-cost stock index, balanced, or targetdate fund.” It also generates retirement income from savings usingIRS required minimum distribution rules, coupled with a low-costindex fund, target date fund or balanced fund.

In addition, the researchers point out that delaying retirementcan “significantly increase” retirement income, and whileinvesting in equities during retirement in most cases could alsosignificantly increase retirement income, that's not always thecase.

The strategy also describes actions that people can take toaccommodate personal circumstances and goals, as well ashighlighting the fact that health issues that might spur people toretire earlier than they had otherwise planned should be severe,such as “receiving a diagnosis of a life-shortening illness.”Otherwise, simply tweaking the SSiRS can accommodate such healthissues as being overweight or having “poor health metrics.”

And in considering spending during retirement, the SSiRS usesforward-looking projections rather than historical assumptions;while the latter results in “dramatically higher projectedincomes,” the former takes into account the current low-interestenvironment and can spur retirees to use greater caution inspending.

Read more: 

• 2 approaches to incorporating health care inretirement planning
• 10 elements of retirement planning employees can'tleave to chance
• Retirement income calculators: What to know abouttheir projections