Nearly all defined contribution plan participants continued contributing to their plans in the first half of 2017, according to ICI's "Defined Contribution Plan Participants' Activities, First Half 2017."
Defined contribution plan assets are a significant component of Americans' retirement assets, representing 28% of the total retirement market and almost one-tenth of US households' aggregate financial assets at the end of the second quarter of 2017.
The broad scope of ICI's recordkeeper survey – which is based on DC plan recordkeeper data covering more than 30 million participant accounts in employer-based DC plans – provides insights about recent withdrawal, contribution, asset allocation and loan decisions of participants in these plans.
The latest recordkeeper data indicates only 1.6% of DC plan participants stopped contributing during this period, compared with 1.9% in the first half of 2016.
"It is possible that some of these participants stopped contributing simply because they reached the annual contribution limit," according to the report.
The survey of recordkeeping firms also gathered information about asset allocation changes in DC account balances or contributions, and found that most DC plan participants stayed the course in their asset allocations.
In the first half of 2017, 6.8% of DC plan participants changed the asset allocation of their account balances, and 4.3% changed the asset allocation of their contributions.
