longisland

Three years after the Secure Act of 2019 paved the way for the first major changes to the U.S. retirement system in more than a decade, more modifications are now on their way.

Secure 2.0 is now law - and it aims to revamp our retirement savings system.

Now the required minimum distribution (RMD) age will increase to 73.

<b>RELATED: <a href="https://longisland.news12.com/retirement-what-it-costs-to-retire-comfortably-in-connecticut-new-jersey-and-new-york">What it costs to retire comfortably in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York</a></b>

Auto-enrollment into workplace plans like 401(k) will become a requirement. And more part-time employees will have access to workplace retirement plans. 

<b>News 12</b>'s Elizabeth Hashagen was joined by Dana Anspach for a conversation on retirement. 

News 12's Elizabeth Hashagen was joined by Dana Anspach for a conversation on retirement.

New Jersey

NJ Weather Stories

Weather stories

NJ | Weather

NJFORECAST

Aren't letting them win either. No, they are not. All right. Let's see where our forecast is going as we head into tonight. There's still a few lingering showers across the area. Fog is a bit of an issue. The fog will probably last right up until about daybreak. As we go through the day tomorrow, we have more clouds than sun, but there will be sunshine in the forecast and with the sunshine and a favorable wind, temperatures will warm up nicely into the mid to upper fifties. Now, we're in the mid forties, there will be a few passing showers as we go through the first part of the overnight hours. But I don't think we're looking, looking at anything too significant things start to change as we get into Sunday. I think that's when we're more than likely going to be looking at a decent shot of rain, not only in the wee hours of Sunday morning before daybreak, but there's another slug of possibly moderate to heavier rain moving in at some point in the afternoon. Tonight, we're looking at mostly cloudy skies. Temperatures are going to be in the mid forties, areas of patchy fog will be around. There's also going to be a few on again off again. Showers early on temperatures will be in the upper thirties and lower forties. Milder temperatures are coming up the east coast. We do have some colder air wrapping around behind this rain event. And when this rain event finally wraps up on Sunday, that's when we start to see the colder temperatures moving in for early next week. So for the rest of this evening, we'll be dealing with a few passing showers by tomorrow afternoon. It's a mixture of clouds and sun. Temperatures will be in the mid to upper fifties, which is well above average for this time of year. We look ahead to Sunday or Saturday night going into Sunday. There's that first round of light scattered rain right up until about daybreak. You're left with mostly cloudy skies. The second round of storms comes in right around three o'clock in the afternoon and that will continue to spread through the area as we go through Sunday night into very early Monday. Otherwise Monday and Tuesday are fairly nice. Temperatures are very chilly going into Wednesday and we might be looking at some rain mixing with a few wet snowflakes, no accumulations but a little wintry. Nonetheless, more details on that forecast coming right up. Thank you, Dave.

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Weather

Brooklyn

BK | Weather

BKFORECAST

First full weekend of December officially upon us, but it doesn't really feel like it out there at all. Was that 60 degrees for Saturday? Really nice. Can't complain a little wet though today. Yeah, it was a little wet a couple of hours ago, but at least we got some dry conditions to kick off the weekend. That will be quickly changing by Sunday. Here's what you can expect. Waves of rain starting Saturday night into Sunday night. So that's going to be a long duration storm where we are expecting rounds of rain, steady rain with a few downpours possible. So you're gonna have to watch for some puddles ponding on area roadways. And if you live somewhere that has poor drainage, you're probably going to see some more of that localized flooding. In terms of tomorrow morning, we're starting off chilly. Temperatures near 46 degrees areas of fog will be to move into our area. It will lift and clouds will still be with us throughout the afternoon with temperatures topping out near 58 degrees muted sunshine. So not seeing that sunshine that we like to see, but at least it's going to remain dry. During the evening, it is still going to remain dry with clouds, but showers do arrive late after midnight. That's where we start to see some of that wet weather pushing through. But at least we got these unseasonably mild temperatures. Our average high 49 degrees. We're not going to see the forties until the midweek. And that's also where we start to see there. I say some festive flakes returning back to our area. But in the meantime, let's just enjoy the dry weather. So some clouds and fog to start our Saturday, it is going to remain dry throughout the day. Temperatures will be topping out near 58 degrees and we got some rain.

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Westchester

WC | Weather

HVFORECAST

Well, it was a gloomy, a gloomy day rather, but the sun will come out for that walk tomorrow in Tarrytown. Right. Edison. Yeah, I think so. Kevin, we're gonna be seeing some breaks in that cloud that getting peeled away. So you perhaps and a few others are gonna maybe go out and about to do some running or some jogging or at least go out for a nice stroll where as you make your way on in through the 11 o'clock hour and a little bit after that, we're peeling away that layer of clouds getting that sun to shine on down temperatures though. Look at that not bad. Get up and towards the low fifties around 11 or so. But as you move on in towards that time frame, where was the showers move away? That fog is lingering around. Some spots may have some pockets of low visibility and for the weekend it's split Saturday, a nice day, Sunday, not so much the case. And then towards next week, we do go dry, but we do see a little bit of some colder air heading all wet. So, speaking of patchy fog, you can barely make out the Cuomo bridge in the distance. Earlier Friday evening, we will be able to see the spot. There's all nicely lit up in red. Not so much the case anymore. I'm looking at that platter and white points. We're keeping that cloud cover around pretty much until noon time as those temperatures only go down towards the mid forties and then rising after that, we're having an area of low pressure, pushing up warmth and moisture up this way. And as a result of that, we're getting that patchy fog to come on down, keeping the cold air away from us in towards your visibility forecast. You can see across Rockland County, Westchester County, Putnam County even. That's where we're seeing some of those low lying areas, some pockets, some lower visibility that will fade away, heading in towards the middle of the day as we get that sun to shine and shine on down and break that cloud deck. So 815 in the morning, we got 42 degrees in Newburgh, 42 as well in Yorktown Heights, you can see about one or two o'clock peeling away the clouds getting some sunny breaks, temperatures getting up in towards the mid FF and several spots then getting up in towards your Saturday night scatter shower slowly trying to push on in before midnight. So prepare yourself if you have any Saturday night plants. Then overnight we see all enough pockets of light rain come through, but we see more rain move on in after lunch time and maybe some batches of moderate to heavy rain time frame right there. 315 Newburgh be on the lookout near Harrison to see some moderate rain falling on down still have that rain falling on down towards seven o'clock. It should be wrapping up afterwards and we go towards your Monday morning commute with drier conditions, breezy winds and then unfortunately, guys, temperatures getting colder after that.

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Long Island

LI | Weather

LIFORECAST

You know, I watched it for so many years and to be seeing and hosting it is a different level. So it looks like everyone else enjoyed their time as well. They did. So this wet weather will get out of here for a little bit. You can have some hot chocolate and dry off tonight after work. And then tomorrow we get a little bit of a break from the rain. Saturday will be your day to get out, do some decorating, do some shopping. Even on Sunday. If you are out, it will be wet. So just have that umbrella. We'll be talking about on and off rain for much of the day, especially the afternoon and evening. Look at your highs this weekend in the fifties. So it is going to be mild. Um So at least, I guess that's a good thing. If it's going to be raining, at least it won't be cold right now. We're in the forties. You see those fifties southwest, this mild air will be in place for the day tomorrow. A little break in the morning, we have some low clouds and fog to kick off the day. But the afternoon is not bad. I think we get a couple of bright spots in the clouds, seeing some sunshine here and there. It's a little bit unsettled but it's dry at night. Light rain is back Sunday morning. There's not much until the afternoon and you see some heavier steadier rain will come through. It will be appearing kind of like today. Um, let's say between about two o'clock and eight tonight, 10 o'clock, most of that rainfall should get out of Suffolk County by 9 to 10 o'clock. Monday will be dry one more mild day and then we'll turn a little bit cooler as our winds will shift to the northwest. How much rainfall are we expecting? About a half an inch, maybe close to an inch in some spots? And that will be through Monday morning after that. The drier weather is back most of next week looks nice with mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the forties.

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Hudson Valley

HV | Weather

Bronx

BX | Weather

BXFORECAST

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Connecticut

CT | Weather

CTFORECAST

I can. And if you're getting out of town for the weekend, you'll run into some rain just about everywhere. On Sunday, Saturday is going to be the dry day and the warmer day, but Sunday will feature some very soggy conditions all around the northeast. There's going to be a much larger system coming our way and this is going to be packing a lot more rain than what we just had. So what's where tomorrow? No rain in sight. They don't have to about the rain gear, but it will be a mostly cloudy day. A little bit warmer with temperatures in the fifties. I would still grab something warmer to where early in the day by the afternoon, you may not need all these layers, but it's a nice day. So get out and enjoy it. We don't often see temperatures like this in December to December. This is meteorological winter and it's a great time to do some star gazing. So we do have a couple of things heading our way for the month. Mercury at its greatest elongation on December 4th, best time to view the planet, which is very, very difficult to see because it's always low on the horizon. Look for that after sunset, the earliest sunset of the year is coming our way as well. That will be December 7th and we also have the gem, its media in a couple of weeks by December 13th and 14th. So stay tuned. I'll have more on that coming your way in the meantime, here's that extended forecast. Temperatures are mild for several days. Fifties right through the weekend. I think Monday and Tuesday are trending drier. Wednesday. More clouds could be a shower and then it's colder after that back into the forties. And that's a look at your local weather.

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0104NewNormalRetirementLawsupdated_2023-01-04-09-33-42

The New Normal: What do the new changes to the US retirement system mean for your wallet?

You have to start with, you know, this, this secure 2.0 it passes over the holidays and it really does have some big changes in it. It does, it's the volume of changes that is overwhelming. So I wouldn't say that any one of the changes is massive on its own, but there were over 100 changes I believe that impact retirement savings. So it was a lot to absorb orbit, kept all of us in the finance industry busy over the holidays now. So let's start with people who are working right now. What will the biggest change for people who are working right now and actively saving for retirement? Um see as part of these new measures, I think the biggest change is the increased opportunity for savings. So there's a little bit of something for everyone, if you are age 50 or older you will be able to save more. The catch up contribution limits are increasing if you are newer or starting out, there's also going to be features available for you such as eventually a match from the government to help you with your retirement savings. That's pretty amazing in itself. As you said in, in the opening access to for for part time employees to contribute to the retirement plan and the feature I'm most excited about is this increased access to Roth ira and Roth 401k contributions. So a lot more opportunities to save money tax free, which is, there aren't that many ways we can really grow our funds tax free and retired. So more access to that is I believe beneficial to everybody. So for the people who are near that retirement, um, you know, portion of their life and they have concerns, what do these changes mean for me? Am I going to need to reevaluate? You know, because I made my assumptions based on what was happening in the past, what changes will affect those people near retirement Near retirement? The biggest change is the increase in the required minimum distribution age. So prior, when you turn 72, that was the kickoff to you having to withdraw money from tax deferred retirement plans, which means as that money comes out, it's taxable income to you on your tax return. Well, they bumped that age to 73, so there will actually be no one that is Is required to start distributions in the 2023 tax year, if you were 72 last year, you're already taking your distributions, you will continue them if you were to turn 72 this year. Well now you don't have to start taking your distributions for one more year and then they're increasing that age for those born in 1960 or later to age 75. So that gives old Workers more time to work if they wish more time to defer the withdrawals from their retirement savings. Now, I always like to make the point that just because you can defer them doesn't mean you should, so if you have retired in your 60s and you have now this window of time where you don't have to take money out sometimes for tax reasons you still should be taking money out of those retirement accounts. But that's the biggest change that's going to impact those nearer retirement as well as the increased catch up contributions. So you're gonna want to reevaluate every year what you're contributing to your retirement plans through payroll and if you have access to that catch up contribution the more you can save the better. And so this year that limits increasing starting right now in 2023-70 500 up from a 6500. Catch up for those 50 or older. So you could go into your payroll right now and increase your 401k contributions to be able to access that catch up and then starting in 2025 it's actually going up to a $10,000 catch up for people only of certain ages. So they created this window where you if you are 60 61 62 or 63 will actually be able to to to contribute even more. So it does mean that every year in january people are gonna want to reevaluate what they're contributing and make sure they're dialing that in right now. I know this these measures you know the whole group of them really benefits mostly the workers who already have access to some type of a workplace retirement plan. But there are features that would help certain employees who you know can't get them at work. Well, there are increased catch up limits to the IRA for example, so that catch up limit if you're age 50 or older has been flat at 1000 since the year 2006. They will now be indexing that to inflation. There are other features, but some of those aren't starting right away. So for example, the access to your employer plan, if you are a part time worker, you used to have to have been there three years, they're dropping that to two years. But that feature doesn't take place until 2025. There will also be the ability to take $1000 out for emerged savings. There will also be eventually the ability to contribute to an emergency savings plan through payroll. But again, your employer has to offer that plan and they are offering some features to encourage small businesses to start 401k. Plan. So they're coming up with a new starter four oh one K. Plan. Uh they're coming up with a plan that will require automatic enrollment, but again, not all of those features are going to start right away. And the reason is plan administrators have to have time to build these features into not only the technology that they use that tracks all of these things but into their plan documents and that can take several years for that to occur. So just because some of these things are now allowed by law it doesn't mean that your employer Or a potential new employer that you you may go to is going to instantly have some of these things available. Because I know the emergency savings really stood out to me because right now 51% of Americans say they can't pay more than three months of expenses through an emergency fund. 25% say they actually have no emergency fund at all. So under these new policy changes, unless they opt out, they would be allowed to automatically enroll in these emergency savings. They would and to be able to save up to $2500 in this emergency savings account. And there's some features where it looks like if you have elected to do that once that account is full, those contributions would automatically be redirected towards a longer term retirement like your 401k. So it is a really nice feature to have, they're also going to um only make that a feature available to people under a certain income limit. So high income earners won't have access to those emergency savings accounts, which makes sense. Absolutely. I want to talk about the student loan borrowers portion of this and we know workers with large student loans, they often decide you know when I got to pay down my debt before I start contributing to my rich Retirement. But actually they did. The survey, 500 workers found, 79% said their student debt cut into their ability to adequately save for retirement. So now, you know, starting in 2020 for student loan payments, could count as retirement contributions and will qualify for that employers matching contribution. Yeah, That is fantastic. Especially if you're just coming out of school, you're often feeling torn. Should I be contributing to my four oh one K. Plan? I don't want to miss out on my employer match. That might not feel fair to you because you need to redirect your dollars towards paying down the student loan. But there will be the option where the employer match could be redirected in terms of a matching contribution to help pay down your student loan, which is, it's really fantastic feature. That's what I thought and I know there's going to be more tax credits available as well. Yeah, it's interesting. I didn't read it quite as a credit. So right now there's something called a saver's credit available and it looks like what they're doing is redirecting that into truly what is, I don't know what else to call it other than a government match to help match savings for lower income people who are just starting out to save and I can't remember. I believe it's 2027. Yeah, I'm looking at mine 2027 at that feature would allow a federal matching contribution up to $2000 a year. So that's going to replace what is currently a tax credit. Okay, okay. And the other thing is that, you know, there's this automatic enrollment, it would require um employers to automatically enroll employees in 401k. S or 43 B. Plans. And that starts in 2025. It does. An automatic enrollment has been around for a long time. Um, many companies do use it. It has been proven, there's a book called Nudge by Richard Taylor that kicked that feature off. It has been proven to be very effective way to get people to save for retirement. Now this new automatic enrollment, there are many exemptions, so it's, you know, depending on how many employees you have when you started your plan. So it's it's not blanket across the board that every employer has to start offering this. But in general, larger employers who are starting new plans will automatically have automatic enrollment, which is a lot of automatics in there. Alright, let's start with our first question in from on it. It's a multi parter here. So she says, what should every young adult do now to assure a secure retirement in terms of saving and how secure people's pension funds. Some could be under frozen, some could be underfunded and others frozen. So let's start with the first part of that question. You know, young people Now, I mean the best thing you can do is start saving and start saving early I think in our twenties and even in our early thirties, retirement seems so far away. Why would we start saving for that? But look at the options available to you, whether it's a plan through your employer or an Ira or a Roth ira, you can fill up that bucket for each calendar year, but once calendar year is over, you can't go back.

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