Strong employee/employer contributions and a rocking stock market boosted the average 401(k) balance during the first three months of the year. It hit $255,000 for participants age 55 and older who worked at their current employer for 10 years or more, according to a Fidelity Investments quarterly analysis of its 401(k) accounts, which had more than 12 million participants.

Financial planners deserve a nod. They generally recommend that we stay the course, even when the stock market tanks. Those of us 55 and up who didn’t sell off equities during the market downturn got rewarded — average balances nearly doubled from $130,700 during the market low in early 2009, the analysis finds.

Related: These ‘Best Employers’ Value Workers Over 50

The small percentage of older workers who got out of equities in reaction to market volatility in late 2008 or early 2009 — and never rebalanced — saw much more modest growth. Their balance grew 25.9 percent over the same period and hit $101,000 by the end of the first quarter of this year.

“There is a valuable lesson to be learned from the minority of pre-retirees who abandoned equities altogether and experienced significantly less progress,” says James M. MacDonald, president of Workplace Investing at Fidelity Investments.  “It’s important to continually remind employees that sticking to [their] savings philosophy may not always reward in the short-term but may over the long-term.”

Participants in other age groups also moved closer to their retirement goals. Average 401(k) balances hit a record high of $80,900 at the end of the first quarter of 2013, almost twice their average balances of $46,200 during the market low in 2009.

The key factors that drove 401(k) balances higher in the first quarter that ended in March: workers saved consistently and held a balanced portfolio with an appropriate mix of equities.

The end of June will mark the end of the second quarter, and 401(k) account holders are likely to see even higher plan balances.

Among other findings:

• Older workers contributed an average 10.3 percent of their annual salaries in their 401(k) accounts during the first quarter.
• Younger participants socked away an average 8 percent during that period.
• Nearly 15 percent of older workers made catch-up contributions during the first quarter. (Employees age 50 and older can stash away an extra $5,500 per year to their 401(k) accounts, for a total of  $23,000 in 2013).

In other retirement-related news, Fidelity conducted a survey that  examined the behaviors and attitudes of people ages 49 to 67 who were faculty members at colleges and universities. The findings:  74 percent plan to delay retirement past the age of 65 or never retire at all.

Why?

• 89 percent want to stay busy and productive.
• 69 percent cited economic concerns, including not having saved enough to retire comfortably.
• 41 percent are unwilling to relinquish access to their institution.

Photo: RichardStep.com/flickr

Also of Interest

• 401(k) Balances Hit Record High for Ages 50-54 — $111,900
• How Much Income Will Your 401(k) Provide?
• Join AARP: Savings, resources and news for your well-being

See the AARP home page for deals, savings tips, trivia and more

So to help them detect and avoid all sorts of financial abuse, from identity theft to reverse mortgage fraud, a new online curriculum and guide was launched by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It’s the latest effort by regulators to curb elder financial fraud, which costs Americans as much as $2.9 billion a year.

Money Smart for Older Adults includes an instructor guide, a participant guide and Power Point slides. It can be used by adult children to teach older adults about red flags and other warnings to spot and report abuse, though officials say caregivers, bank employees, financial planners, adult protective service personnel and law enforcement officials would be the primary instructors.

“With 50 million older people in this country, and 10,000 more reaching retirement age every day, we cannot afford to tolerate financial predators or practices that victimize our elder citizens,” CFPB Director Richard Cordray said. “It is essential that we come together as a nation to protect our seniors and the money they have scraped together over a lifetime of hard work.”

Read: Can you spot investment fraud?

Older adults’ reliance on family members, caregivers and others in a position of trust may make them vulnerable to abuse, Cordray said at a news conference. Many crimes go unreported because victims are often too embarrassed or dependent on the perpetrator to report the exploitation or pursue legal action.

According to a MetLife study, women were twice as likely as men to be victims of elder financial abuse. Most were between the ages of 80 and 89, lived alone and needed help with either health care or home maintenance.

Among the topics covered in the new curriculum and guide were:

• Investment fraud, including deceptive “free lunch” seminars in which aggressive salespeople pressure adults into buying  unsuitable investment products.
• Power of Attorney abuse, which can happen when a caregiver or other trusted adult offers to help pay bills, then makes unauthorized withdrawals from accounts.
• Financial designations abuse, which is when so-called financial experts use bogus or misleading designations to dupe people into buying investments that may be inappropriate.
• Telemarketing scams, including situations in which callers use fear or pressure tactics to get adults to send money or to divulge bank account information.
• Reverse mortgage schemes, such as when brokers pressure the borrower to purchase annuities, long-term care insurance or high-risk investments with the proceeds from the reverse mortgage in order to generate commissions.

Earlier this year, the CFPB urged state law enforcement officials to issue strict guidelines and step up enforcement to prevent financial abuse of older adults by financial professionals.

Photo: Images Of Money/flickr

Also of Interest

• Seniors Get Hung Up in Health Care Scams
• Don’t Get Strong-Armed in a Moving Scam
• Join AARP: Savings, resources and news for your well-being

See the AARP home page for deals, savings tips, trivia and more

For all that dad does around the house — plumbing, BBQ grilling, mowing the lawn and other chores — he’s now worth $23,344. That’s up from $20,248 last year, thanks to average wage increases for household jobs that dads typically do, according to Insure.com’s annual Father’s Day Index. (The index is based on wage data from the U.S. Department of Labor).

I’m sorry to bring this up (not really), but even though dad’s value is rising, he’s still worth less than half of what mom’s worth (at least around the house): $59,862 in 2013.

Related: Jobs Report — More Older Workers Landed Jobs in May

Moms shouldn’t get too excited, however. Her value dropped from $60,182 in 2012, and from $61,436 in 2011, according to Insure.com’s annual Mother’s Day Index, which calculated the wages of household jobs moms typically perform, like cooking, cleaning and paying bills.

Sure, some dads may be insulted by their calculated $23,344 worth. In a survey of 500 dads with kids age 12 and under, more than half pegged their value at between $30,000 and $100,000.

Among dad’s favorite household tasks:

• Barbecuing/cooking: 22 percent
• Helping with homework: 17 percent
• Driving: 14 percent
• Coaching a team: 9 percent
• Assembling toys, other things: 9 percent
• Fixing broken items: 6 percent
• Mowing the lawn, shoveling snow: 5 percent
• Doing family finances: 5 percent

If dads could hire someone else to do all their household chores, what would they do?

• 36 percent say they’d spend more time with family
• 11 percent say they’d exercise or play sports
• 10 percent say they’d use the extra time to go to work

Here’s how moms think dads would use their free time:

• Hang out with family: 30 percent
• Watch TV or movies: 16 percent
• Exercise or play sports: 14 percent

Did I mention that mom’s value was higher than dad’s?

Also of Interest

• Record Number of Moms Outearning Dads
• Social Security Expert: ‘We’re Playing with Fire’
• Join AARP: Savings, resources and news for your well-being

See the AARP home page for deals, savings tips, trivia and more

Photo: Paul Hami/flickr

Two banks, Zions Bank of Salt Lake City and First Bank of Delaware, were not only accused of allowing dubious merchants to illegally debit their customers’ accounts with unauthorized charges, according to the New York Times, but they actually profited handsomely from the transactions.

Consequently, tens of thousands of bank customers, many of them elderly, lost more than $100 million in a two-year period, the newspaper reported, citing court documents.

Telemarketers tend to target older adults, often pressuring them for their bank account information and then setting up one-time or recurring charges without authorization.

[Read: Confessions of a con artist]

Last November, First Bank of Delaware reached a $15 million settlement with the Justice Department after it was accused of enabling suspicious Internet businesses to access customers’ accounts more than 2 million times. Federal officials claimed the bank effectively abetted “fraudulent Internet and telemarketer merchants,” and stayed “willfully blind” to the fact that the merchants were illegally taking money from customers, including a disproportionate number of seniors, through “fraud, trickery and deceit,” the Times said, citing court records.

These troubling incidents may be happening more than we know. Banks across the country are ignoring warnings of potential fraud and aiding scammers in gaining access to customer accounts. Authorities say these banks help facilitate billions of dollars of fraud each year. And they stand to profit.

“You can’t close your eyes anymore to the fraud that you are allowing to happen,” Michael Blume, the director of the Justice Department’s consumer protection branch, told the Times. “Banks are in business to make a profit. Unfortunately, this is a moneymaking operation at consumers’ expense.”

In the case against Zions, for example, the bank let some $39 million be withdrawn from hundreds of thousands of accounts from 2007 to 2009. Many of the account holders were older people; some were on shaky financial ground. That worked in the bank’s favor: the withdrawals set off more than $20 million in insufficient fund fees that the bank collected, according to the report.

Lawyers representing several hundred thousand consumers sued Zions, claiming that the bank effectively gave “fraudulent marketers direct access” to customers’ bank accounts.  The lawsuit is pending in a federal court in Pennsylvania.

The Justice Department is considering civil and criminal actions against a number of banks for failing to protect customers from suspicious merchants, for originating transactions on behalf of businesses that they know make unauthorized withdrawals from customer accounts and for allowing tainted money to flow through branches, the Times reported.

Photo: 401(k) 2013/flickr

Also of Interest

• Don’t Get Strong-Armed in a Moving Scam
• Why Are Boomers Retiring So Early?
• Join AARP: Savings, resources and news for your well-being

See the AARP home page for deals, savings tips, trivia and more

Retiring in Australia appears to be much more pleasurable than in the United States — and it has nothing to do with gathering around the barbie and watching marsupials romp.

Most workers who retire in the land Down Under apparently don’t have to worry so much about outliving their savings. That’s because about 90 percent of the workforce has a retirement savings account, and contributing to it is mandatory. Yep, you read that correctly. Most workers sock away at least 9 percent of their paycheck each week.

Here’s how that worked out: Today, some 20 years after the mandatory retirement savings program (called the Superannuation Guarantee) was enacted in Australia, it has amassed $1.52 trillion in assets for a population that’s only one-fourteenth the size of ours, Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s Nick Summers says in a report.  By contrast, in American workers’ 401(k) plans, there’s $2.8 trillion, but those funds have to cover millions more retirees.

A big part of the problem: Fewer than half of all U.S. workers participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI). What’s also disturbing, many workers tend to cash out their retirement accounts when they change jobs, rather than keep them intact or roll them over to an IRA, points out Matthew Heimer in a MarketWatch column.

In a report last year, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) cited a $6.6 trillion gap between what Americans have saved and what they will need in retirement. He said half of all Americans have $10,000 or less in savings.

[Read: Worst-Rated States For Retirement]

But back to retirement savings, Aussie style. According to Bloomberg’s Summers, contributions to Australia’s Superannuation accounts are after-tax, and withdrawals by those 60 and older are tax free. Participants can hire an investment company to manage their retirement accounts, though about half of Australians manage their own.

Their employers don’t bear the administrative expenses or the legal risks of overseeing those plans, Summers reports.

Initially, when the Superannuation law was enacted in 1992, employers were required to put 3 percent of most workers’ salaries into retirement accounts. That level has been raised over time as the public has gotten used to the idea. Today, 9 percent of virtually every paycheck now goes into these funds, and by 2020, it will be 12 percent, he reports. Some workers contribute even more.

Perhaps we should look to the Aussies for inspiration on how to solve our country’s retirement problems.

Photo: Subhash Chandra/flickr

Among all workers age 55 and older, the jobless rate fell to 5.3 percent last month from 5.5 percent in April, the government reported Friday. Older women drove that trend. Their unemployment rate slid to 4.3 percent in May from 4.8 percent the month before.

Among men in that age group, the unemployment rate ticked up slightly in May to 5.8 percent. It was 5.7 percent in April. Last year at this time, the jobless rate for men was 6.9 percent; for women, it was 5.6 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Nationally, the jobless rate rose one-tenth of 1 percent to 7.6 percent in May as more job seekers entered the labor force, driving up those figures. Many of these were people who grew so discouraged by the lack of jobs that they stopped looking for work and were no longer counted among the unemployed. Now, as the recovery continues to gain ground, these job seekers are coming back into the fold to hunt for work, believing that their prospects have improved.

[Read: Six ways to jump-start your job search]

May’s jobs growth was better than the 149,000 jobs created in April (those figures were revised down from 165,000) and it comes closer to the monthly average of 200,000 that the nation saw in the previous six months. However, the weak global economy and the squeeze on government spending continues to take a toll, says economist Paul Dales of Capital Economics.

The most hires in May were in professional and business services (57,000 jobs), followed by restaurants and bars (38,000 jobs), and the retail sector (28,000 jobs).

The number of people out of work for six months or more remained about the same at 4.4 million in May, the BLS said. And just like every other month for more than a year, 1 in 2 was 55 and older.

This is just how difficult finding a job can be: The duration of unemployment last month grew for older workers to 54. 2 weeks from 50.2 weeks in April. For those under 55, the duration in May fell to 35.9 weeks from April’s 36.9 weeks.

In another gauge of the jobs landscape, a survey showed that employers planned to cut payrolls by 36,398 during May. That was 4.5 percent less than in April and 41 percent lower than the same month a year ago, according to the survey by the outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas. The health care sector saw the biggest cuts, the survey results found.

Andjohan/flickr

That’s the situation Americans are facing in 2033, when Social Security’s trust fund is projected to be exhausted, and retirees will be paid just about 75 percent of their benefit.

To reignite the debate over how to close Social Security’s funding gap, a panel of experts gathered at a Capitol Hill forum on Tuesday and urged lawmakers to “shake off their complacency” and take action now, not years from now.

 ”We’re already late in the game” to enact changes to the system, says Charles Blahous, a Social Security public trustee. “We’re playing with fire.”

The renewed debate over how to strengthen Social Security comes just two days after the 2013 annual trustees report was released. It showed that the retirement program’s reserves will be depleted 20 years from now — in 2033.

To discuss alternatives that would prevent Social Security from running short on funds, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Washington think tank Third Way and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University sponsored the forum and invited the panel of experts to weigh in.

Among the proposals:

• Modify the benefits structure and raise the age at which a worker can collect full Social Security.
• Eliminate or phase out the cap on earnings subject to Social Security payroll tax.
• Gradually raise the tax that workers and employers pay toward Social Security.
• Use a different formula to measure inflation and Social Security cost-0f living adjustments.
• Cut Social Security taxes for adults who stay in the workforce later.
• Phase out benefits for high earners ($150,000 to $250,000 for individuals; $200,000 to $400,000 for couples).

Some of those ideas might not be popular with politicians. But there’s not a lot of time to sit around and pontificate. Jim Kessler, a senior vice president for Third Way, pointed out that it was just six years ago that Social Security’s trust fund was predicted to be exhausted in 2042.  Now that scenario has been moved up in part because no action has been taken to shore up the program.

“We should all be stunned and disappointed” by legislators’ failure to act, he says.

The Medicare trustees report was also released on Friday. Like the Social Security report, it issued projections for the hospital insurance’s trust fund over the next 75 years.

But unlike the Social Security report, it said that Medicare’s outlook had improved. It said Medicare will be able to pay full benefits until 2026, two years later than projected last year. Social Security’s trust fund outlook remained unchanged from last year’s projection.

“You can’t put a defined benefit system like Social Security on auto pilot forever,” Virginia Reno, vice president for income security at the National Academy of Social Insurance, told the forum. “It’s not a savings account.

“It needs to respond to demographic changes,” she adds, referring to the gigantic boomer generation that will no doubt tax the program.

Nancy LeaMond, AARP’s executive vice president, called for “an honest, open national debate about the value of Social Security and its importance” to millions of beneficiaries.

“Too many politicians in Washington talk about changes to Social Security without considering the impact in income security such changes will have on real people,” LeaMond said in a statement.

401k 2013/flickr

Tapping into their home equity for financial help isn’t an option for 1 in 12 in that age group. They owe more on their home than it’s worth.

[Read: The Boomer Financial Recovery Guide]

That snapshot of Americans’ finances was captured in a report by the FINRA Investor Education Foundation, which questioned more than 25,000 adults of all ages on their ability to manage day-to-day finances and saving for the future.

Among the findings for those 55 and older:

• 17 percent have past-due medical bills.
• 8 percent get financial help from family members.
• 15 percent turn to high-interest loans rather than borrow money from a bank or credit union.
• 12 percent have taken a 401(k) loan or hardship withdrawal.
• 8 percent have been late with their mortgage payments.
• 2.5 percent have declared bankruptcy in the last two years.

A separate report on retirement preparedness was just released by Gallup, and it shows how utterly pessimistic middle-aged and older workers feel about their ability to accumulate sufficient retirement savings.

Despite the improving economy, 55 percent of adults ages 30 to 64 say they don’t expect to be able save enough to live comfortably in retirement.  Fully 38 percent say they do expect to retire comfortably.

The majority (46 percent) say 401(k) plans and IRAs  are their expected major source of retirement funds, followed by Social Security (30 percent), savings accounts or certificates of deposits (25 percent) and pension plans (24 percent).

401K 2013/flickr

The projections for the two programs and their trust funds over the next 75 years come from the Social Security and Medicare Trustees annual report released Friday.

See also: AARP responds to Trustees report on Social Security

AARP responds to Trustees report on Medicare

If the trust funds of Social Security and Medicare were exhausted, benefits would be cut — not stopped — because both programs are funded mainly through payroll taxes.

The improved outlook for Medicare was due in part to the cost controls resulting from the Affordable Care Act, the report said, and to lower projected hospital insurance spending.

“Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, we are taking important steps to improve the delivery of care for seniors with Medicare. These reforms aim to reduce spending while improving the quality of care, and are an important down payment on solving Medicare’s long term financial issues,” Marilyn Tavenner, Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said in a statement.

Medicare spending per beneficiary has increased modestly — 1.7 percent annually from 2010 to 2012 — and is projected to continue to grow slowly over the next several years.

Slower spending increases will likely benefit beneficiaries. Although the Part B premium for 2014 will not be determined until November, the preliminary estimate in the report suggests that it will remain unchanged from the 2013 premium.

With reforms that improve care and eliminate waste, Medicare can drive positive change to benefit everyone throughout the entire health care system, AARP CEO Barry Rand wrote in a USA Today column.

The trustees report, which warned that both government programs face funding challenges, will likely influence debate over the future of entitlement programs as well as measures to cut the deficit.

“With their report today, the Social Security Trustees draw renewed attention to the long-term financial challenges facing this vital retirement security program. While not in crisis, Social Security will require modest changes to ensure current and future generations will receive the benefits they’ve earned,” AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond said in a statement.

Medicare covers about 50 million people, 42 million aged 65 and older, and about 8 million people with disabilities.

About 57 million people collect Social Security benefits.

Photo: Stockmonkeys.com/flickr

Also of Interest

• Improving Care, Reducing Costs in Medicare
• The Walk to Walden’s Woodshed and Other Contradictions in the Obama Budget
• Join AARP: Savings, resources and news for your well-being

See the AARP home page for deals, savings tips, trivia and more

Photo: Robert Kirk/Istockphoto

A majority of those women — fully 63 percent — are single moms, while 37 percent are married.

But here’s what’s quite interesting: Younger married moms are outearning their husbands much more than boomer moms.  According to the report from the Pew Research Center, 67 percent of mothers ages 31 to 46 earn higher wages than their husbands today. Among mothers ages 47 to 65, only 19 percent make more than their spouses. Among the biggest reasons for that change — women are better educated and in the workforce in greater numbers.

[Read: Best Employers for Workers Over 50]

For a little perspective, consider that the number of married moms who outearn their husbands rose from 4 percent in 1960 to 15 percent in 2011. Single mothers also tripled in number during that time period, from 7 percent to 25 percent.

What also deserves mentioning is that the percentage of families in which dad is the breadwinner and mom is the homemaker dropped from about 70 percent in 1960 to 31 percent in 2011.

Among married couples with children, the total family income is highest (nearly $80,000) when the mother — not the father — is the breadwinner. When dad’s the breadwinner, the family income is about $2,000 less. But it’s about $10,000 less among couples whose wages are the same.

The income for families led by a single mother was $23,000, according to the report, which was based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

It seems that the gains that women made in the labor pool over the years have taken a toll. Of the 1,003 people Pew surveyed, 74 percent say that it’s harder for parents to raise children when women work. And half of respondents say it takes more work to make a marriage happy.

Tax Credits/flickr