financial stress Archives

3 Financial Stressors Affecting Every Generation

by ryanwangman | Aug 26, 2019 | Blog

3 financial stressors affecting every generation. Millennials, Baby Boomers and Gen Xers all have something in common — they’re stressed about their emergency savings, retirement and housing.

Every generation, from Millennials to Baby Boomers to Gen X, has varying financial pain points. However, they all have a few stressors in common — concerns over emergency savings, retirement costs and housing. When asked what financial wellness meant to them in a survey by PwC, the top answer across all generations was not being stressed about their finances.

Emergency Savings

For Millennial and Gen X employees, not having enough emergency savings for unexpected expenses topped their list of financial concerns. For Baby Boomers, emergency savings came in just behind not being able to retire when they want to as far as their most pressing financial challenge. All generations have reason to be concerned, as a recent survey by Bankrate found three in 10 U.S. adults have no emergency savings and couldn’t cover three months’ worth of living expenses.

Additionally, only 18 percent of Americans say they could live off of their savings for at least six months. Experts think part of the reason for the widespread lack of savings is that incomes haven’t kept pace with rising household expenses.

Retirement Contributions

A recent study by AARP found that at least two in five survey respondents from each generation were not confident that they will have enough money to live comfortably throughout retirement. Nearly half of people across the three generations said they hadn’t put away any money for retirement at all. This is particularly troubling, because the longer people wait to save for retirement, the longer they’ll have to work to sustain their preferred lifestyles. More than 80 percent of today’s employees expect they’ll need to work in retirement to sustain themselves financially, according to research by PwC.

More than 75 percent of AARP’s respondents also agreed that Social Security and Medicare are important to their personal retirement. An overwhelming majority of Baby Boomers (95 percent) said it’s very or somewhat important that Social Security is there for them in retirement. With the future of these programs uncertain, it’s worrisome that so many Americans are aiming to rely on these them in retirement.

Housing Costs

Although buying a house is a quintessential part of the American Dream, there are many barriers in place that prevent people from making the purchase. For Millennials and Gen Zers, the biggest obstacle to buying a house is the high cost of the down payment on a home, according to research by Freedom Debt Relief. That’s the second-biggest concern for Baby Boomers, who are most stressed about the cost of the monthly payment on a house.

Many people are also unable to afford a home because of debt that they already have. Credit card debt makes up a majority of debt that people across generations have, with 46 percent of Americans reporting they have credit card debt. This makes it one of the bigger burdens for people trying to save up more to buy a house.

All this financial stress is damaging the quality of the workplace, as employees are spending an average of 3-5 hours per week at work worrying about their personal finances. Financial wellness programs like Best Money Moves can help. Best Money Moves is mobile, gamified and easy-to-use. It provides practical, unbiased help so employees can make smarter financial decisions and manage the debt they have.

More on Financial Stress and Financial Wellness Programs

5 Must-Have Benefits for Millennial Employees

How Does Financial Wellness Affect Health?

5 Fast Financial Stress Statistics

Hiring Trends to Watch in 2020

What Is Financial Literacy and Why Is It Important?

4 Big Employee Benefit Trends for Family Planning

How Can Financial Wellness Be Improved?

Top 10 Employee Benefits for 2020

If you want to learn more about how Best Money Moves can bring financial wellness to your company download our whitepapers and sign up for a demonstration here.

How Does Financial Wellness Affect Health?

by LizStevens | Jul 10, 2019 | Blog

How does financial wellness affect health? Recent research looks at the link between financial stress, health and how financial wellness programs can help.

Several recent studies ask how finances affect the health of employees and some researchers took it a step further to examine how financial wellness programs correlate with better health outcomes.

According to a new survey by Bankrate, money worries are the biggest cause of sleep loss and it’s getting worse. Seventy-eight percent of U.S. adults are losing sleep worrying about everyday expenses, saving for retirement and healthcare costs.

“Sleep greatly impacts mental health and physical health, and mental health also impacts sleep,” Dr. Gail Saltz, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical College, “Not getting enough sleep can impact mood, increase depression and increase anxiety.”

Financial Stress Affects the Health of Employees

Money causes the most stress in the lives of almost 60 percent of employees, according to a report by PwC. It was the top choice for life stressor across all generations, well ahead of issues with jobs, relationships, and health. More than 30 percent of employees say their health has been impacted by their financial worries.

Merrill Edge looked at how Americans with significant investable assets feel about their finances for their recent report. The majority of these relatively financially secure Americans say managing their finances impacts their mental and physical health (59 percent and 56 percent, respectively). Roughly 40 percent of mass affluent Americans would give up all social media platforms forever or cut carbs, sugar and/or alcohol if they never have to manage their personal finances again.

Financial Wellness Programs for Better Health

When PwC asked respondents what employer benefit they don’t currently have but would like, one in four employees said they want a financial wellness program with an unbiased counselor. Financial wellness programs are in high demand but the one thing employers want to know is if they work and recent research suggests they do.

Close to 30 percent of employees without access to financial wellness benefits say they worry a lot about current and future finances, according to research by Prudential. Among those with access to financial wellness, worries about current and future finances drop to less than 20 percent. Nearly 60 percent of workers who use financial wellness programs consider their overall mental health “good,” and those numbers fall to 55 percent for those who don’t use financial wellness programs.

According to the Prudential report, “These findings add to the body of literature that suggests that financial and physical health are often intertwined, and that employers who help their employees on both fronts stand the best chance of achieving the benefits that wellness programs can offer: healthier, happier, more productive employees whose physical and emotional health may lead to lower rates of absenteeism, fewer delayed retirements, and reduced levels of employee turnover, healthcare costs and employee disability.”

More on Financial Wellness and Employee Health

5 Fast Financial Stress Statistics

How Can Financial Wellness Be Improved?

What Tops Financial Stress for Employees?

How to Support Mental Health at Work

Financial Wellbeing & Its Role in a Complete Employee Wellbeing Program

by DHS Group | Jun 6, 2019 | Blog

Financial wellbeing and its role in a complete employee wellbeing program. In this guest post, DHS Group‘s VP of Employer Solutions, Rich Siegenthaler, recommends four ways your employee wellness program can keep up with changes in the benefits industry. The opinions expressed in this blog belong to the author and DHS Group.

It’s getting more and more common to see employers focusing on strategies to assist their employee population in managing their complete wellbeing rather than one single area. They’re accomplishing this by adding programs that benefit the financial wellbeing and mental health of employees. This is a step in the right direction that’s quickly leading to healthier employees in every sense of the word.

Maybe you’re already putting some of these strategies to work or maybe you’re hoping to in the near future. Wherever you are in the journey, DHS Group’s VP of Employer Solutions and experienced employee wellbeing professional, Rich Siegenthaler, has a few recommendations to get you started and make sure you’re on the right path to complete employee wellbeing.

Expand Beyond Traditional Wellness Programs

Traditional wellness programs put surface programs at the forefront – think: step challenges – while these are important, the industry is changing and what employees are looking for is changing.

Integrate Mental Health Programs

For years, mental health has been something that both employees and employers have strayed away from discussing with each other. However, as mental health conditions are spreading rapidly – with issues like anxiety, depression and worry being dealt with by people everywhere – employers can’t afford to not offer these types of programs as part of their wellbeing plans.

Provide Financial Wellness Programming

The number one stressors in American households today are financial. While employees do need to understand how to invest their resources in traditional ways (like 401Ks), the new trend is to provide tools for employees to manage their day-to-day and month-to-month budgets.

Many times, employees say they understand they need to put more into their 401K, but know that if they do, they will not be able to pay their bills. Financial wellness programming helps people look at their earnings, bills and expenses, and learn how to manage them more effectively. It is a day-to-day management strategy that helps employees lead a more comfortable and accountable lifestyle when it comes to their financial health.

Improve Communication

However you decide to start expanding your wellbeing program to a more complete package – communication is key. There will be growing pains, but in order to help lessen those, remember that your employees are people too. Open up the lines of communication to hear from your employees about what they’re looking for overall and what they are looking for in their wellbeing programs.

Before you do anything, the ultimate first step is to look at your workforce, your employee demographics and how your very own organization operates. Then, with these details in mind, alongside Rich’s recommendations above, you’ll be well on your way to a complete wellbeing program that benefits the employee AND the employer.

Learn more about bringing complete wellbeing to your employees with DHS Group’s HealthSpective Engage program here.

More on Employee Wellbeing and Wellness Programs:

From Employee Wellness to Wellbeing: Transforming Your Workforce

4 Big Employee Benefits Trends for Family Planning

How to Support Mental Health at Work

Employee Benefits Success is All About Communication

What’s Wrong With Wellness Program Incentives?

What Benefits Do Employees Want in 2019?

5 Fast Financial Stress Statistics

by LizStevens | Jun 3, 2019 | Blog

5 fast financial stress statistics. Americans opened up about debt, housing and spending habits in a survey from Freedom Debt Relief and the results underscore a desperate need for financial wellness.

More than 20 percent of Americans would rather go to the dentist or the DMV than talk about their finances, according to research by Freedom Debt Relief, which got people to open up about debt, housing and financial habits in their latest survey.

Nearly 80 percent of Americans said they have debt. More than 45 percent of them have debt over $10,000 and 5 percent of them are more than $250,000 in debt.

When asked about their financial habits, these are the five statistics that best highlight mounting financial stress for Americans:

5 Fast Financial Stress Statistics

41% don’t set aside any money for their household retirement plan.
25% have charged their credit card for groceries/food and not been able to pay it off right away.
33% said it would take more than 3 years to pay their credit card debt.
29% said if they needed $2,000 for an emergency, they would use a credit card.
20% of those with children in childcare said the cost is as expensive as, or more expensive than, their monthly rent or mortgage payment.

How Debt Impacts Personal and Professional Life

Most Americans carrying debt are suffering in silence. More than 40 percent of Americans said they find it difficult to talk about debt with friends and families, and as we mentioned earlier more than 20 percent would prefer a date with the dentist or the DMV over a discussion about debts and finances.

Americans bring their financial stress with them to work. Nearly 20 percent say the amount of their debt impacts their productivity. Research by PwC found more than 40 percent of employees who are distracted by financial stress spend 3 hours or more at work thinking about or dealing with issues related to their personal finances each week.

Financial wellness programs, like Best Money Moves, give employees an opportunity to privately learn how to better manage their debt, spending and saving. It empowers employees to resolve their financial stress, without having to talk about it.

More on Financial Stress and Financial Wellness

How Can Financial Wellness Be Improved?

What Tops Financial Stress for Employees?

What Percentage of Americans Spend More Than They Earn?

Reduce Financial Stress with This Type of Insurance

How Bad is the Student Loan Crisis?

What is Financial Literacy and Why is it Important?

Retirement Concerns: Is Financial Literacy the Solution?

by LizStevens | Apr 17, 2019 | Blog

Retirement concerns: is financial literacy the solution? Those workers that do have a 401k aren’t saving enough to cover expenses in retirement, even when employers match contributions.

Retirement is a far-off goal most Americans don’t even think about while they’re paying down debts, struggling to pay for childcare and taking care of aging parents. It’s become so disconnected from reality that 20 percent of Americans are actually basing their retirement plans on winning the lottery, according to research by Stash.

Americans Are Not Saving Enough for Retirement

Not saving enough for retirement is the number one fear among middle-income earners, and with good reason. Four researchers at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University recently found three-fourths of American workers with defined contribution plans like 401(k)s aren’t saving enough to maintain their standard of living later in life.

Can Financial Literacy Solve Retirement Concerns?

Nearly half of U.S. adults failed to correctly answer basic financial literacy questions in a recent annual assessment.

The P-Fin Index by the TIAA Institute asks 28 questions across eight functional areas of finance including: earning, consuming, saving, investing, borrowing/managing debt, insuring, comprehending risk and go-to information sources. American adults scored highest in the area of borrowing/managing debt and lowest in comprehending risk.

This year, the P-Fin Index included several new questions indicative of financial wellness. According to the report by TIAA Institute, “Greater financial literacy is positively associated with the capacity to handle a financial shock, saving for retirement on a regular basis, being unconstrained by debt and other indicators of financial well-being.”

Financial Wellness Programs and Financial Literacy

Financial literacy is indicative of financial wellness and high school curriculums across the country are adding personal finance courses as a requirement for high school graduation to start addressing the widespread lack of financial literacy.

What about the half of U.S. adults who couldn’t answer basic financial literacy questions? How can they learn the skills they need when they don’t know where to begin?

Financial wellness programs help workers improve financial literacy, pay down debt and save for retirement. They are a valuable employee benefit and with the right financial wellness program, like Best Money Moves, employees are given the tools and resources to help them attain financial literacy while they better their financial wellness.