Defined contribution plan participants continued saving for retirement in 2017, with withdrawal activity remaining very low and participants maintaining contributions to their plans, the Investment Company Institute said in a report released Thursday.
In 2017, only 3.4% of DC plan participants took withdrawals, compared to 3.3% in 2016 and 3.4% in 2015. Only 1.7% of participants took hardship withdrawals during the year, compared to 1.5% in 2016 and 1.6% in 2015.
Only 2.7% of participants stopped contributing to their plans in 2017, the same as the previous year. Only 2.6% of participants stopped contributing in 2015.
Loan activity was lower in 2017, with 16.7% of participants having loans outstanding as of Dec. 31, compared to 17% a year earlier and 17.4% at the end of 2015. Despite the continuing drop, loan activity does remain higher than year-end 2008 as the financial crisis began to take hold, when only 15.3% had loans outstanding.
Reallocation activity, meanwhile, dropped slightly, with 9.3% of plan participants changing the asset allocation of their account balances in 2017, compared to 9.4% in 2016 and 9.7% in 2015. In 2017, 5.5% of participants changed the asset allocation of their contributions, down from 5.6% in 2016 and 7.6% in 2015.
ICI analyzed record-keeper data covering more than 30 million DC plan participant accounts.
The report is available on ICI's website.
