student loan debt Archives

Financial Wellness Month: How to Make the Most of It

by LizStevens | Jan 16, 2019 | Blog

Financial Wellness Month: How to Make the Most of It. Employers can help reduce financial stress that hinders productivity by providing tools that help employees pay down debt and save for retirement.

January is National Financial Wellness Month! It’s perfect timing because Americans are facing their New Year’s resolutions and preparing for tax season.

Here are 5 areas of financial wellness where employees need support most:

Helping Save More for Retirement

Employees experience debilitating financial stress when it comes to retirement and they want employers to provide tools and support that ensure they’ll have enough money saved to last through retirement.

Preparing for Future Healthcare Expenses

Long-term healthcare, like nursing homes or assisted living, is expensive and although 70 percent of Americans will need it, more than 60 percent have nothing saved.

Tackling Student Loan Debt

Student loan debt surpasses $1.5 trillion and it is affecting your workforce. Student loan debt is affecting all age groups, it’s keeping younger employees from major life milestones and it is making your employees sick.

Spending Smarter

More than half of Americans spend more than they earn and 70 percent consider their level of debt to be problematic. Almost 50 percent have credit card debt, more than 40 percent have a mortgage or a car loan and over 30 percent have student loan debt. Employees need help spending smarter so they can pay down their debt and start saving.

Bracing for Recession

There’s a 23 percent chance of a recession in the next 12 months, and employees are not ready for it. The Federal Reserve Bank’s latest report found 40 percent of U.S. households cannot cover a $400 emergency expense, leaving them unprepared and vulnerable to financial crisis in a recession.

How Employers Can Help

An effective financial wellness program, like Best Money Moves, can help employees budget spending better, pay down debt, save for emergencies and plan for retirement. Best Money Moves combines technology, information, smart tools and live money coaches to help employees measure their level of financial stress in 15 categories, and then sends relevant information and tools to help them reduce that stress.

Employees use the program’s point-based rewards system, which assigns point values to every action possible on the site from setting up income and expenses with the budgeting tool to reading articles and measuring stress. Each month Best Money Moves hosts a global contest with a cash prize for the user who has earned the most points during the month. This ongoing engagement strategy keeps usage at 25 to 51 percent.

What sets Best Money Moves apart? We aren’t trying to sell your employees anything and we aren’t a “robo-investment” platform because we believe that employees need unbiased information they can trust.

Learn more about how Best Money Moves can make a difference for your employees by contacting info@bestmoneymoves.com.

Will Increasing Financial Literacy Reduce Overall Financial Stress?

First Look at the Future of Financial Wellness

What Does Financial Wellness Look Like for Women?

Financial Wellness Research Warrants Worry

Financial Support Limits Retirement Readiness for Parents

What Tops Financial Stress for Employees

Boost Employee Engagement and Loyalty with Financial Wellness

Money and Health are Tied Together. Here’s What We Know

What Tops Financial Stress for Employees?

by LizStevens | Dec 11, 2018 | Blog

What tops financial stress for employees? Retirement and student loan debt, among other financial issues, worry employees enough to inhibit productivity, but financial wellness programs can help them take control and regain focus at work.

John Hancock released their annual Financial Stress Survey this week and the findings are worrisome. An overwhelming majority (69%) of American employees experience financial stress. Over 70 percent of them worry about personal finances at work (costing employers up to $2,000 annually per employee in lost productivity).

High levels of financial stress manifest through physical symptoms like anxiety, lack of sleep and a feeling of being overwhelmed. Nearly 90 percent of workers feel there is a social stigma associated with not being financially well, which could motivate them to conceal symptoms of financial stress.

Employers might not notice when employees are highly stressed about finances if they hide it well, and finances aren’t a topic employees are comfortable bringing up with their supervisors. Surveys like these give insight into how employers can better help employees by targeting the issues that affect them most through effective financial wellness programs and benefits.

What Tops Financial Stress for Employees?

Close to 80 percent of employed Americans are concerned about retirement savings and student loan debt. More than 60 percent of workers are concerned with keeping up with basic expenses, like monthly rent payments. Others are stressed about their overall financial situation and a lack of emergency savings.

Most Americans think getting financial advice at work would reduce their stress and more than 60 percent believe it would help them start saving more for retirement. Employees think employers can help them most with financial issues like retirement income preparation and Social Security and Medicare claiming. Roughly 30 percent think employers can help them with debt counseling or buying a house.

Employers recognize today’s American employees experience high levels of financial stress and are looking for ways to improve health and wellness offerings in this vital area. New solutions, like the creation of HRAs, and the rise of student loan benefits help employees deal with specific financial issues and have the potential to be incredibly successful in their respective areas. Their specificity is also a drawback. Employees in poor health or without student debt won’t benefit from those solutions, but they’ve surely got their own unique financial stressors.

Expansive financial wellness programs that give employees the tools and support to improve the issues affecting their overall financial wellness, versus those that tackle singular financial issues, are likely to make the most difference. Employees are able to reduce their financial stress by using and applying knowledge from their financial wellness program and eventually, will start to reach their financial goals.

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

What Percentage of Americans Spend More Than They Earn?

by LizStevens | Oct 3, 2018 | Blog

What percentage of Americans spend more than they earn? Recent research looks at spending habits, debt, retirement security and how close or far Americans are from achieving financial wellness.

More than half of Americans spend more than they earn, according to recent joint research by the Association of Young Americans (AYA) and AARP.

Almost 50 percent have credit card debt, more than 40 percent have a mortgage or a car loan and over 30 percent have student loan debt. Close to half of them have nothing saved for retirement. The 70 percent of Americans that consider their level of debt to be problematic are right to be worried.

“As we look into the future, financial and retirement security is going to be a concern for all of us,” says AARP Senior Vice President Jean Setzfand.

The most striking finding from AARP’s report is that there isn’t as much variance on financial security by generation as is commonly thought. In particular, student loan debt has similarly affected each generation’s ability to save for retirement and life decisions, not just Millennials. Student loan debt has kept roughly 30 percent of Millennials, Gen Xers and Baby Boomers from buying a car or house. It’s kept 40 percent of Millennials and Gen Xers and 30 percent of Baby Boomers from savings for retirement. Student loan debt has kept 25 percent of Millennials and 20 percent of Gen Xers and Baby Boomers from moving from their current residence. Student loan debt is making it harder to achieve the American dream across generations.

Survey results also showed that Americans are willing to learn. Over a third sought advice from a professional financial advisor and close to 80 percent believed such advice would be very or somewhat trustworthy. This is encouraging for employers who offer or are considering offering financial wellness programs. Employees who engage with financial wellness benefits are likely to trust the program, and ideally, apply the advice from it to improve their financial situations.

“Across generations, economic concerns and financial security are a top priority for Americans,” says Ben Brown, founder of AYA. “These findings clearly indicate that all three generations care deeply about programs that ensure long-term financial success for individuals, families, and our nation as a whole.”

The Student Debt Crisis is Growing and Affecting Your Workforce. What Can You Do?

by Nicole Smith | Jan 30, 2018 | Blog

In this week’s Best Money Moves roundup, we take a look at news stories and new research studies that may impact employee benefits and HR issues. We hope you find this news roundup helpful, and we’d love your feedback.

America has a student loan debt crisis. Employers are paying the price.

Over 44 million Americans are carrying a total of $1.48 trillion in student loans and chances are your employees (and possibly even you) are among those affected. Employees facing significant student loan debt are more likely to defer saving for retirement, buying a home, getting married and having children. (And they’re spending between 12 and 15 work hours each month fretting about their finances.)

They’re also more likely to seek out additional employment to cover their expenses. As a result, their concentration, productivity and overall physical health suffers – as does your company’s bottom line.

Meanwhile, the financial cost of higher education is only increasing with time, matriculating well-educated, inexperienced and deeply indebted graduates into the workforce.

Empowering your employees with financial know-how is the key to reducing financial stress, managing their student loan debt and creating financial wellness.

Make no mistake: student debt affects your employees’ ability to plan for the future and build productive and meaningful relationships. For employers, providing access to financial wellness through financial literacy and financial planning benefits programs means you’ll be able to attract and hold on to talented employees.

The cost of a higher education shouldn’t cost your company a good work force and it shouldn’t hold your employees back from planning their future. Read this week’s story to learn about 10 things you need to know about your employee’s student loan debt.

Employee Student Loan Debt: 10 Things You Need To Know (Part I)

How does a dynamic team stay on the same page? Between remote workers, local employees, freelancers and executives, Quartz has found that “virtual coffee breaks,” annual summits and transparency through a 1,000+ page handbook keeps everyone in their company looped in to cultural norms and work processes.

Can transparent communication guidelines actually connect your team?

Are you trying to grow your female IT workforce? Women make up a smaller share of both the private and public IT workforce. Five female federal executives offer advice on how women can succeed in public sector IT, despite making up a smaller share of the labor pool. See how the tide is changing.

5 Tips to Stop Backslide of Women in Government Tech

Corporate tax savings have arrived! What are America’s largest corporations doing with their millions in slashed taxes and instant savings? Here is a list of S&P 500 companies that have announced bonuses, wage increases and other special investments for their employees based on their new lower tax rate.

Tax savings allows greater investment in employees

It’s never too late to start a late-stage retirement plan. Don’t wake up in a cold panic anymore! Yes, you should have already begun your retirement savings plan – your retirement looms closer every single day. But if you haven’t started already, isn’t it too late? It’s not.

9 immediate steps to take today, to begin your retirement savings.

Cost is no longer the driving force when it comes to benefit platforms. What are the many factors taking priority over cost? Ease of use for benefits administrators and their employees as well as the ability to integrate new benefits technology with existing HR information systems – and that’s not all…

Employers are choosing user experience over cost.

Are you living in a Smart City? In March, the Smart Cities Council 2018 Readiness Challenge Grants will announce 5 winners from a list of 9 regional finalists. They’ll access workshops, products and services to bolster initiatives in infrastructure, open data platforms, Internet of Things (IoT), public Wi-Fi, sustainability and more.

What would you do with a Readiness Challenge Grant?

Is your city in one of the top six US office markets? 2017’s commercial property market experienced a lag in tenants, while office space availability has remained steady since 2016. Tenants at the end of 2017 occupied 21 million square feet more office space than they did at the beginning of the year.

How will economic diversity and population flow affect the office market for 2018?

Have something to add? Email info@bestmoneymoves.com.

Employee Student Loan Debt: 10 Things You Need To Know, Part Two

by Leah Rosen | Jan 30, 2018 | Blog

Employee student loan debt: 10 things you need to know, part two. The student loan debt crisis isn’t going away. This is what employers need to know about it.

This article is the second part of a series on 10 Things Employers Need to Know About Student Loan Debt. Catch up with Part One, here.

Americans owe a combined $1.4 trillion in student loan debt — and employers are starting to feel the burden of that enormous debt. The vast majority of employees are financially stressed, and they are less focused, less engaged and less productive than those without debt and are more likely to take one a second job or skip work due to a stress-related illness.

The student loan debt crisis isn’t going away, but there are ways you help your employees cope with their financial stress and get back to work. Here are 10 important things you need to know about student loan debt and the struggle your employees are facing in paying it back:

6. Student loan debt is not a millennials-only problem.

Younger employees aren’t the only ones dealing with the stress of student loan debt. In fact, 2.8 million Americans aged 60 and older carry outstanding student loans from their own college education. This number is up significantly from 2005, where only 700,000 Americans in this age group carried outstanding loans. Your older employees may be struggling to repay debt from continuing education or are possibly paying off debt from sending a child or grandchild to school.

7. Stress over student loan debt is keeping your employees from major life milestones.

Millennials graduating with student loans are more interested in paying off their loan debt than they are in homeownership, getting married or having children. A study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York has found that having student loan debt decreases homeownership at every level of higher education. Indebted millennials also less likely to set aside money for retirement or build an emergency fund, creating further vulnerability, possible additional financial debt and significant stress into the future.

8. Stress over student loan debt is making your employees sick.

Over half of young workers with student loan debt worry about it constantly, according to American Student Assistance, a nonprofit specializing in helping consumers finance their higher education. Stressing about massive debt isn’t just an emotional strain, it can also cause significant physical ailments from occasional headaches or gastrointestinal problems, to more chronic conditions such as high blood pressure or depression and anxiety.

9. Most employees wish they had more information about repaying student loan debt, they just don’t know where to look.

Repayment options for student loan debt are often complicated and difficult for consumers to navigate on their own. With private loans, interest rates and monthly payments can change with little to no warning. Certain options, like consolidation or forgiveness, often requires knowledge of how to make negotiations with whoever holds the loan. Don’t let your employees feel overwhelmed by their debt – employers hold a unique ability to help their employees manage their student loan debt and help build their financial literacy.

10. Most employees want their employers to provide them with resources on student loan debt.

Employees already rely on their Human Resources departments for information on workplace safety, benefits and managing retirement plans. Increasingly, they are looking to their employer and HR team to provide debt counseling, financial tools and management options and overall financial wellness. By offering debt counseling and financial literacy services, you show your employees that you understand the financial challenges they face paying back student debt and are invested in their wellbeing. Your employees will not only feel happier to work for an employer who cares about their wellness; as their financial wellbeing grows and their student loan debt decreases, your employees will be healthier, more present, more productive, and ready stick with your company for the long term.

Financial literacy and financial planning are key to reducing financial stress, student loan debt and creating financial wellness. The first step, however, is knowing how to get there. For your employees, student loan debt affects their ability to plan for the future and build productive and meaningful relationships. For employers, it means being able to attract and hold on to talented employees. Consider who in your workforce might be affected by significant student loan debt. The cost of a higher education shouldn’t cost your company a good work force and it shouldn’t hold your employees back from planning their future.

To get the complete picture about student loan debt and your employees, be sure to read Part One of this article here.