**GAO-11-118**                      Published: Jan 31, 2011. Publicly Released: Feb 23, 2011.                  

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## Highlights

To promote the adoption of appropriate default investments by retirement plans that automatically enroll workers, in 2007 the Department of Labor (DOL) identified three qualified default investment alternatives. One of these options--target date funds (TDF)--has emerged as by far the most popular default investment. TDFs are designed to provide an age-appropriate asset allocation for plan participants over time. Because of recent concerns about significant losses in and differences in the performance of some TDFs, GAO was asked address the following questions: (1) To what extent do the investment compositions of TDFs vary; (2) what is known about the performance of TDFs; (3) how do plan sponsors select and monitor TDFs that are chosen as the plan's default investment, and what steps do they take to communicate information on these funds to their participants; and (4) what steps have DOL and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) taken to ensure that plan sponsors appropriately select and use TDFs? To answer these questions, GAO reviewed available reports and data, and interviewed TDF managers, plan sponsors, relevant federal officials, and others.

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## Topics

Government Operations

AssetsEmployee retirement plansFunds managementIndividual retirement accountsInvestment planningInvestmentsMonitoringPerformance measuresRetirement benefitsUse of fundsLossesDefined benefit plansPublic health emergencies