PLANSPONSOR - July - August 2023 - 13

participants are hungry for more personal
finance information. Budgeting, credit
card usage and paying off student debt
are popular subjects, as well as long-term
planning questions such as how to juggle
multiple savings goals.
Farnaz Maters, vice president and
chief marketing officer for retirement and
income solutions at Principal Financial
Group, says the industry has not made it
easy for new participants to understand
investing, but that needs to change. " The
more that we simplify it and make sure
it's consumable in a way that can drive
engagement, the more impact we're going
to have, " she says.
Participants " want it to be more selfservice,
like, 'I'm at point 0. Tell me about
step 1. Don't tell me about steps 1 through
10 at once,' " says Maters. " It makes our jobs
a little bit more difficult, because you've got
to be really thoughtful about the different
cohorts or segments that you're serving
[and] where they are in their journey. "
Empower launched The Currency
to make money topics more accessible,
with the idea of looking at money across
life, work and play, says Steve Jenks, chief
marketing officer at Empower. Information
is updated weekly. The content is tied in to
what people are reading or seeing on social
media, he says, and the site offers a mix
of fixed messaging and dynamic content.
Dynamic content is content personalized
to the anticipated interests of the user;
Dynamic content is more effective, since it
is intended to provide information the user
is seeking and that reflects that person's
current situation, Jenks says.
Every generation has had its money
struggles. Successful financial education
should empathetically reflect Gen
Z's issues, Dunlap says. She says older
personal finance speakers who have
been critical of the savings habits of
Millennials and Gen Z fail to recognize
the systemic issues the latter group
faces, such as student debt, a stagnating
minimum wage, spiraling rents and
home prices out of reach for the average
person, she says. -Debbie Carlson
TIDBITS
Women's Top Concerns Vary
By Generation
Millennials (ages 27 - 42)
Cost of housing
Not saving enough to retire
Being unable to pay off debt
Gen X (ages 43 - 58)
Not saving enough to retire
Cost of housing
Baby Boomers (ages 59 - 77)
Social Security/Medicare cuts
Outliving savings
Not saving enough to retire
48%
37%
25%
44%
39%
Being unable to pay bills while ill 38%
57%
42%
21%
Note: Percentage reflects those who answered that the issue was in their top three
concerns.
Source: National Council on Aging and Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement,
" What Women Say: Insights and Policy Solutions for Lifelong Financial Security "
Impact of Insufficient
Retirement Savings
Almost 57 million private sectors workers
lack access to an employer-sponsored
retirement plan; this will contribute to
state and federal governments absorbing
$1.3 trillion in increased costs for seniorserving
programs from 2021 through 2040.
Source: Pew Charitable Trusts, " The Cost of Doing Nothing "
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