10 Industries With Worst Performing 401(k) Plans

401(k) plans represent a powerful tool for many workers to prepare financially for life after work, but not all 401(k)s are created equal. Simply put, some industries have employment practices and working conditions that are conducive to retirement preparedness, while others do not.

This is one of the big takeaways from a new 401(k) plan benchmarking report published by Judy Diamond. As the authors explain, there are dramatic differences across industries when it comes to average account balances, participation rates, employee tenure, rate of return and other metrics.

Judy Diamond, a business unit of ThinkAdvisor’s parent company, ALM, annually publishes industry rankings of employer-sponsored plans through an examination of every active 401(k) plan. The goal of this research is to provide a data-oriented analysis 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 about 610,000 active 401(k) plans with at least $3,000 in plan assets and at least one active plan participant.

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

This year’s report saw a significant reshuffling at both the top and bottom end of the rankings, and the results reflect a challenging year for retirement plans across industries as the stock and bond markets sold off.

While each industry naturally has outliers and outperformers, the data shows that some industries are clearly lagging when it comes to helping workers prepare effectively for retirement.

See the accompanying slideshow for a review of the bottom 10 industries in the report.