CHICAGO (Aug. 5, 2010) — U.S. retirement assets totaled $16.5 trillion as of March 31, up 2.6 percent from the end of the 2009, according to an Investment Company Institute (ICI) report issued Aug. 4.
Total defined contribution (DC) assets, including corporate, 403(b) and 457 plans, were $4.24 trillion as of March 31, up 3.3 percent from three months earlier, according to the ICI report, “The U.S. Retirement Market, First Quarter 2010.”
Assets in state and local government pension plans were $2.89 trillion, up 3.9 percent; and corporate DB plan assets totaled $2.2 trillion, up 3 percent. Federal pension plans had $1.32 trillion, down 45 basis points from the end of the previous quarter.
Assets in IRAs were estimated to be $4.34 trillion as of the end of the first quarter, up 2.1 percent, while assets in annuities were $1.51 trillion, up 2 percent.
A separate ICI report released Aug. 4, based on a survey of DC plan record keepers, said that 1.2 percent of DC plan participants took withdrawals from their plans during the first quarter, down from 2.7 percent in the first quarter of 2009.
The report, “Defined Contribution Plan Participants' Activities, First Quarter 2010,” also found that 1.1 percent of DC plan participants stopped contributing to their plans during the quarter, compared with 2.7 percent a year earlier.
This article appeared in Pensions & Investments magazine, a Chicago-based sister publication of Tire Business.