Financial Wellness is by no means a new idea, but this year its need is beyond measure. Today, many Americans are struggling with their day-to-day finances: Studies show that nearly 76% of employees are living paycheck-to-paycheck; 29% say they deal with personal financial issues on the job – often for two to three hours a week, and 70% of companies who have financial wellness programs don’t have formal measurements to assess the value of those programs.

Developing a plan to re-active your workspace will be challenging and complex. You must determine which workers need to come back first, develop a phase-in period for welcoming them back, and adjust your workspaces to adequately reflect and implement social distancing guidelines, and overall and most importantly, provide a safe and healthy environment for your employees to work in.

Earlier this year, at the end of March, the CARES Act was passed into law with broad legislation around stimulating the economy and providing some stability to businesses, households, and individuals during the COVID-19 health pandemic. Within the CARES Act, there are provisions that impact both companies and organizations that offer retirement plans to their employees. Here, we’ll identify how these changes come into play as we move throughout the year, what these key provisions mean for retirement plans, and the administrative oversight these new provisions necessitate from employers.

In the new normal of our COVID-19 economy, it seems like it’s business as usual (with a slight twist) for some and a complete disruption to the normal business cycle for others. We frequently discuss the performances of various market indexes in our market updates; but for this commentary, we focus on breaking down what’s happening within the various sectors that comprise the S&P 500 Index – the primary U.S. market index – to provide you with a better understanding of how the markets are anything but business as usual.

The coronavirus pandemic has placed unprecedented challenges on employers, as we have seen companies being forced to implement layoffs and furloughs and navigate financial constraints from decreased revenues and profits. It has become clear that the COVID-19 health crisis has brought and will continue to bring significant economic disruption, which means that employers need to confront the challenges related to their 401(k) plans. Many organizations have been coming up with ways to prudently manage their budgets and expenses, and one topic that deserves attention is the flexibility surrounding changes to employer-sponsored retirement plans with respect to the employer match, profit-sharing, and discretionary contributions.

It was another tough week for the markets – rehashing the numbers merely magnifies the pain, so let’s leave it at that. A positive to acknowledge: The U.S. economy entered this period of uncertainty from a position of strength. The economy was robust, the unemployment rate, at 3.5%, was at historic lows, the consumer balance sheet was strong, and consumer debt service – after years of refinancing – was at modern-era lows. We shudder at the thought of what the damage to the economy would have been if we had had to battle this pandemic in 2009 while our economy was suffering in the aftermath of the credit crisis. This outbreak is an external factor penetrating the economy; it is not a by-the-book recession that involves the economy bubbling and bursting internally with a grim recovery outlook due to the issues stemming from weak fundamentals. Fundamentals were strong and trending positive before this acute event, meaning, from an economic standpoint, we are in a position to weather this storm, regain strength, and eventually recover.

We want to take a moment to address the extreme selling that has transpired in the markets throughout the last few days and weeks. It’s too early to say if yesterday’s capitulation-style selling signaled a market bottom, and it is too early to predict what the resulting short-term and long-term damage to the domestic and global economies will be. Our view is that most industries and sectors will recover from the coronavirus sell-off, while the industries that have been most directly impacted by the virus – hospitality, transportation, and tourism – will face a prolonged recovery. The timing and degree of recovery is first and foremost dependent on the spread and subsequent containment of the virus.

We are all aware of the 401(k) contribution limits set annually by the IRS, but what if you’ve maxed out your contributions for the year and still want to save money for retirement? You could fund a brokerage account separate from your 401(k), but you would face a costly capital gains tax on those earnings. This is where leveraging an after-tax source in your 401(k) comes into play.

Before dispersing for its winter break, Congress passed significant changes to retirement savings law that will affect many of us now and all of us in the future. This new law, the Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement (SECURE) Act, is part of the massive government spending bill that was approved by Congress on December 19 and signed into law by President Trump on December 20, 2019. This bill extensively reshapes the realm of employer-sponsored retirement plans for both employers and employees and enacts the biggest changes to the U.S. retirement system since 2006.

Have you heard of, or considered, socially responsible – or, what the industry now calls ESG, investments? These investment vehicles have been gaining a lot of traction this year for focus on sustainable, socially conscious, "green" and/or ethical screens for the companies they own in their portfolio (i.e. mutual fund or ETF) and also for their ability to point of potential financial risks that can't be identified by typical quarterly results. They seek to consider both financial return and specific environmental, governance, and social metrics to help investments do well by “doing good.” In this video, I sat down with Clarice Avery of Natixis Invest Managers. We talked about all the things you should know when considering an ESG investment for your investment line-up. You can learn more at Natixis’ site and ESG101.