These 10 Industries Offer the Best-Performing 401(k) Plans

Alongside the fast-diminishing defined benefit pension system and the financially shaky Social Security program, the essential third leg on the proverbial “retirement stool” in the United States is made up of defined contribution plans — among which the 401(k) stands out as by far the largest and most widely adopted plan type.

In fact, as noted in a big new 401(k) plan benchmarking report published by Judy Diamond, total assets held in 401(k) plans now stand near $7 trillion, while the 403(b) market only passed the $1 trillion mark for the first time in 2021.

Judy Diamond, a business unit of ThinkAdvisor’s parent company, ALM, annually refreshes its industry rankings of employer-sponsored plans through an examination of every active 401(k) plan in the country. The goal of this research is to provide an objective, data-oriented view of different industries, how their collective 401(k) plans are performing, and how that compares to other industry groupings.

By providing a breakdown based on industry and size, the report allows individual employers and advisors to benchmark performance against the appropriate peer group. For the 2024 report, Judy Diamond researchers examined approximately 610,000 active 401(k) plans with at least $3,000 in plan assets and at least one active plan participant.

This data comes from the 2022 plan year, and represents the most recent data available at the time of this writing. These plans cover about 68 million eligible workers. In total, this equates to about $6.4 trillion in assets — or the vast majority of money sitting today in 401(k) plans.

Notably, the Judy Diamond report breaks the financial services and insurance industry into three segments. One consists of the financial advisor and investment management industry, the second is the insurance brokerage industry, and the third is “other” financial and insurance services.

See the slideshow for a review of the 10 industries with the best retirement plan performance across key metrics including average account balances, participation rates, rate of return, rate of employer and employee contributions and employee longevity.