The goal of retirement plans should be providing income to those no longer working, not accumulating wealth for those who still are.

As a retirement economist – not to be confused with a retired economist, which are rare – I often find myself talking to Wall Street types who happen to be in charge of a lot of other people's money. The conversations vary, but the takeaway almost never does. As a senior executive at a large asset-management firm recently said to me, with surprising candor: "We don't know how to solve the retirement problem."

By "problem," he was referring to the declining share of Americans who view their retirement plans as on track. And by "we," he was referring to the financial industry – which, to be fair, has made some progress in offering various kinds of accounts and ways of saving. But it is still getting the big things wrong.

Continue reading the entire piece here at Bloomberg Opinion (paywall)

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Allison Schrager is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal.