Golden Years or Financial Fears? Decision Making After Retirement Seminars

Many organizations provide retirement planning seminars to their employees as a benefit to help them make better informed retirement decisions.  This study examines the participants in 85 seminars conducted by five companies in 2008 and 2009 to determine how much learning takes place and whether employees adjust retirement plans.  Using surveys conducted before and after the seminars, we find that financial literacy and knowledge of retirement program parameters are significantly higher after the seminar.  Employees with the largest increases in knowledge were most likely to change their planned retirement age and planned age of claiming Social Security benefits.