Retirement Readiness by InFRE®

The International Foundation for Retirement Education (InFRE) and the Certified Retirement Counselor^® (CRC^®) Certification were founded in 1997 on the concern that most working Americans are not prepared for retirement, and would need qualified help to make informed decisions.

With the intent of creating standarized measurement tools for employers, employees, advisors and consumers to use fore planning and evaluating retirement readiness progress, InFRE worked with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) from 2001-2007 to develop tools and identify educational resources to help over 3 million federal workers be better prepared for their retirement years.  Six in-depth research components were conducted over three years, and over 20,000 individuals particpated in the research that designed and validated the first versions of the readiness profile and index.

Incorporating input from a team of more than 30 experts involved in private and public sector retirement plans and the financial planning fields, InFRE developed a survey instrument that addressed a balanced approach to retirement planning.  These experts redefined the asset-based definition of retirement readiness from financial readiness alone to be the successful intersection of the following key domains:

• psychological and social aspects of retirement
• physical wellness, long-term care and health care preparedness
• risk management and retirement security.

Survey results were segmented and analyzed by career stage because the concept of being retirement ready is dependent on how many more years an employee has left to plan. Career stage was calculated by subtracting the respondents current age from the age they said they would retire from the government.

• Early Career – 25 or more years before planned retirement.
• Mid Career – 10 to 24 years before planned retirement.
• Late Career – less than 10 years before planned retirement.

This final survey resulted in creation of the InFRE^® RetirAwareness Quiz, InFRE Retirement Readiness Profile^TM and the InFRE Retirement Readiness Index^® which can be used by federal agencies, private and public sector employers to:

• identify the general readiness of their employees and plan-specific programs to address the identified issues
• help individual employees create a personal retirement readiness plan of action for increasing their retirement

We invite you to visit the links at left in order of their appearance to learn more about how you and/or your organization can benefit from these ground-breaking initiatives designed to increase the retirement security of the American worker.