President Obama speaks about retirement

Although his recent comments on health care and education have received more press, in his September 5 weekly radio address, President Obama announced new iniatives for retirement savings.  The Department of the Treasury will:

• Expand opportunities for automatic enrollment in 401(k) and other retirement savings plans,
• Make it easier for more than 100 million families to save a portion or all of their tax refunds,
• Enable workers to convert their unused vacation or other similar leave into additional retirement savings, and
• Help workers and their employers better understand the available options for tax-favored retirement saving through clear, easy-to-understand language.

You can read more about it on the White House fact sheet, or listen to the full audio of the address.

Photo of  White House (cc) from David Paul Ohmer and republished here under a Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved.

Readers embrace penny-pinching page turners

So reports the Sunday Boston Herald, which featured the Retirement Planning Club yesterday in its article, “Readers embrace penny-pinching page turners,” which included a sidebar of “free advice” from the Club, as part of their Hard Times/Economic Survival Guide series.

Did you hear us on NPR?

NPR’s Morning Edition Saturday featured the Retirement Planning Club this past Saturday, February 28th.  The report by Lynn Neary included interviews with several Club members and Reference Supervisor Nancy Johnson.

If you missed it, a summary is available here, and you can click near the top of the story where it says “Listen Now” to hear the whole thing.  We’ve had a lot of inquiries and several new members as a result of the piece.  Thank you to everyone who agreed to be interviewed, and to everyone at the February meeting (especially our speaker, Larry Kirsch) for providing background audio!

Changes to Massachusetts probate law

News from the Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries:

In January, Massachusetts adopted the Uniform Probate Code, St.2008, c.521, resulting in major changes to current probate laws.  According to the Massachusetts Bar Association,

“The reforms increase uniformity with other states, add protections for those under guardianship and the beneficiaries of trusts, eases the administration of probate matters for judges and court personnel and reduce delays for citizens. Among the changes are:

• Mandating courts to monitor guardianships and requiring guardians to issue annual reports.
• Shorten to seven days after the date of death (from as long as five months) the length of time it takes to appoint an estate administrator
• In the case of no will, the spouse gets the entire estate if the children are all of the marriage.
• Trustees will be required to notify beneficiaries of accountings and acceptance of appointment.”

Some changes are effective July 1, 2009, but most do not take effect until July 1, 2011. 

The Massachusetts Trial Court Law Libraries has links to this and other probate laws on their website under Mass. Law About Wills and Estates.