< The 2015 Pension 40: The Long Climb

As one of the first mortgage-backed-securities traders on Wall Street, Laurence Fink has long been good with numbers. But one number the chairman and CEO of asset management giant BlackRock is not good with these days is the $136,200 in retirement savings that the typical 55- to 65-year-old American has socked away — which equates to just $9,150 in postretirement annual income for someone who stops working at 65 — according to a survey last summer by his New York–based firm. “The lack of retirement savings is a growing problem for this country,” says Fink, 63, who co-founded BlackRock in 1988, when 401(k) plans were dwarfed in size by traditional defined benefit pension plans. Today defined contribution plans dominate the retirement landscape, shifting the investment decision making from companies to individuals, compounding the problem, Fink says. BlackRock’s research has found that many Americans have a deep fear of investing and have parked 65 percent of their wealth in cash. With two thirds of the money it manages in the U.S. tied to retirement, BlackRock has a responsibility to be a leader on these issues, Fink says. “The key is education,” he explains. “We need to make the concept of investing and preparedness for retirement a conversation of today. If we have that conversation and we have an organized path, then there will be less fear.” In November, BlackRock launched iRetire, a software platform that provides financial advisers with sophisticated tools and resources to help clients determine how much they need to retire and what they can do to get there. Fink is also concerned about the gap between the assets and the liabilities of state public pension funds. “The funding gap is going to have a pronounced impact on state spending for infrastructure,” he notes. “It could be a major drag on the U.S. economy.”

 
The 2015 Pension 40

1. Bruce Rauner Illinois 2. John & Laura Arnold Laura and John Arnold Foundation Private Markets Investment Outlook Q2 2025: Opportunities Amid Uncertainty Sponsored by Schroders Capital May 1, 2025 3. Chris Christie New Jersey 4. Randi Weingarten AmericanFederation of Teachers 5. Phyllis Borzi U.S. Department of Labor

6. Kevin de León California 7. Alejandro García Padilla Commonwealth ofPuerto Rico 8. Laurence Fink BlackRock 9. Rahm Emanuel Chicago 10. Sean McGarvey North AmericanBuilding Trades Unions

11. John Kline Minnesota 12. J. Mark Iwry U.S. Treasury Department 13. Damon Silvers AFL-CIO 14. Jeffrey Immelt General Electric Co. 15. Joshua Gotbaum Brookings Institution

16. Robin Diamonte United Technologies Corp. 17. Mark Mullet Washington 18. Terry O'Sullivan Laborers' International Union of North America 19. Raymond Dalio Bridgewater Associates 20. Ted Wheeler Oregon

21. Thomas Nyhan Central States Southeast and Southwest Areas Pension Fund 22. Karen Ferguson & Karen Friedman Pensions Rights Center 23. Randy DeFrehn National Coordinating Committee forMultiemployer Plans 24. Robert O'Keef Motorola Solutions 25. Caitlin Long Morgan Stanley

26. Kenneth Feinberg The Law Offices of Kenneth R. Feinberg 27. Orrin Hatch Utah 28. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Center for Retirement Initiatives, Georgetown University 29. Ian Lanoff Groom Law Group 30. Joshua Rauh Stanford Graduate School of Business

31. Ted Eliopoulos California Public Employees' Retirement System 32. Edward (Ted) Siedle Benchmark Financial Services 33. Teresa Ghilarducci New School for Social Research 34. Denise Nappier Connecticut 35. W. Thomas Reeder Jr. Pension BenefitGuaranty Corp.

36. Hank Kim National Conference on Public Employee Retirement Systems 37. Paul Singer Elliott Management Corp. 38. Bailey Childers National PublicPension Coalition 39. Amy Kessler Prudential Financial 40. Judy Mares U.S. Labor Department