Retirement

There are plenty of reasons why plan sponsors peering into 2014 might have that deer-in-the-headlights look about them.

A paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia challenges the idea that much of the decline in unemployment is happening because many discouraged workers have simply given up looking for work.

Aon Hewitt says the most common way employers are doing so include switching share classes to less costly alternatives (62 percent) and swapping out funds for lower-cost alternatives (50 percent).

Set aside for a moment the fight in Washington, D.C., over stopgap spending legislation.

Colleges and other high-ed institutions are reducing costs by increasingly using single plan providers.

Most companies, Fortune 100 companies included, have attempted to lower their retirement costs over the past decade. The most popular way has been to close pension plans to new hires and begin offering defined contribution plans instead.