The research team at Judy Diamond Associates partners with Mutual of America on an annual benchmarking report that considers the relative performance of 401(k) plans across some 27 industries that employ many millions of Americans.
In addition to helping employers benchmark their own plans against their peers, the report represents an opportunity for financial advisors to have a meaningful discussion with business-owner clients about how their plans are doing.
While each industry has outliers and outperformers, the data shows that some industries are clearly lagging when it comes to helping workers prepare effectively for retirement.
In the introduction to the newly published 2025 edition of the report, Eric Ryles, vice president of customer solutions at Judy Diamond, notes that the underlying data comes from the 2023 plan year and represents the most recent data available at the time of this writing.
“2023 was an excellent year for your 401(k),” Ryles observes. “In addition to the obvious benefits that a thriving stock market brings, the 2023 plan year was one of plan creation. We tracked more than 70,000 new 401(k) plans, 15,000 more than in the previous year. That’s a 27% increase in the number of plans.”
Those plans — plus growth in the existing plans — helped 6 million more people save for retirement, with more than 100 million workers now eligible to participate in a plan.
“From a statistics perspective, 6 million new savers presents a challenge,” Ryles says. “While some of those 6 million rolled in an existing 401(k) balance, most did not.
"As a result of this, the average account balance did not increase nearly as much one might expect, given the robust market returns during 2023. … Beware of making judgments based solely on year over year growth in account balance,” he adds.
Other metrics that go into the rankings include participation rates, rates of return, rates of employee contributions, rates of employer contributions and a proprietary plan score. As in prior years, the rankings saw a substantial degree of reshuffling at both the top and the bottom of the list.
See the accompanying slideshow for the eight best and eight worst industries in terms of their 401(k) performance.
Credit: Adobe Stock
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