VY means that it's offered through a Voya retirement plan. It would open and close in rhythm with the main share class of the fund. Price would not offer access to Voya investors that it denied its own.

Thank you, Lynn, for such a thoughtful, inspiring essay on life and finances in retirement.
https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/2023/10/beyond-the-rainbow-a-map-to-the-good-life-in-retirement/

I wrote to Vanguard for temporary waiver for Admiral min of $50K. I cited bad 3-yr stretch for hybrids & that new money cannot be added to IRAs in retirement (only earnings from work can be contributed).
Vanguard's reply, after several days, was that it is looking into the matter.
If Vanguard's final response is negative, I will just SELL those Admiral hybrids (under $50K) ahead of Investor-conversion deadline and replace them with appropriate combo of TCAF + USFR. In the bigger scheme of things, the ER change doesn't matter. But Vanguard needs to have some pushbacks. After Vanguard forced conversion to brokerage, I am not limited to Vanguard funds.

The Wall Street Journal (10/03/2023) reports:

While the generation born in the 1980s and 1990s has lagged behind prior generations when it comes to homeownership and earnings, new data suggests they are saving more for retirement. By the time older millennials now earning a median salary reach retirement, Vanguard estimates, they will be able to replace almost 60% of their preretirement income with Social Security and savings from sources including their 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts.
Gen Xers and the youngest baby boomers with median earnings are, by contrast, likely to replace about half of their paychecks in retirement. ("Millennials on Better Track for Retirement Than Boomers and Gen X")

The reason they give is at employers now automatically enroll new employees in a 401(k) with a default target-date fund. The plans are often crappy and overpriced, but a mile better than the previous plan: let them figure it out on their own.
Three quick notes:
1. "better" is still not "good" - the same Vanguard study estimates at the median income should target replacing 83% of their pre-retirement income with investments + Social Security.
2. relatively few can anticipate the life path that we or our parents had: home ownership is out of reach in and around the megacities, though remarkably affordable in likely "climate havens" in the Upper Midwest, around the Great Lakes ex-Chicago, and parts of New England, and half of young folks in their 20s are living at home with their parents.

I grew up in a multi-generational home - nine of us, representing three generations, shared the same 900 square foot, 1890s brick house for a long time - so "living with family" isn't something I see as automatically negative.

3. if anyone cared to notice, this might go down in Augustana history as "Snowball's good deed." Ten or 15 years ago I was called upon to help rebuild the college's retirement plan, which had a generous employer contribution (10% of base salary) but almost no employee contributions. We also had over 1200 fund and annuity options. Depending on the department (faculty, facilities, admin, food services ...), participation was in the low teens as a percentage of eligible folks contributing and the average contribution was around 3% a year.
I helped engineer four moves: a far smaller array of fund choices, automatic enrollment in the plan, automatic escalation of the employee's contribution from 6% (year one) to 10% (year five and beyond, unless the opted out) and a shift in the college's contribution from a straight percentage to a 5% guaranteed contribution plus up to 6% more in a matching contribution.
When I last checked, we had something like 94% participation and an average contribution around 9%.
Which no one but you knows.
Cheers!

Yet, it isn't just COIN, HOOD, etc, but companies such as BLK, Fidelity, BEN, etc are betting on the launch of physical/spot-crypto ETFs OR are offering them to their retail and retirement customers.
Several countries have introduced CBDCs. The Fed is still evaluating digital-dollar.
So, there is something there that may not be obvious to all.

Devesh and I, separately, chose to think through the implications of "higher for longer" as a Fed mantra.
Lynn began poking at the new TRP Capital Appreciation ETF and wrote a really nice reflection on Retirement: Year One.
I made some portfolio shifts, which is rare for me. I cut Matthews Asian Growth & Income (MACSX) after a long time. I booked a substantial gain, but mostly in the early years of the holding. What ultimately got me to act was reading the fund's own webpage (their pretty straightforward in reporting performance) and the apparent turmoil / turnover at Matthews. It strikes me as hard to do your job when other people are losing theirs. I added Leuthold Core (LCORX), because I don't have the energy just now to worry about how to reallocate assets when the picture (goodbye, Speaker McCarthy) changes daily. And I had already added RiverPark Strategic Income, which I'd written about this summer in tandem with Osterweis Strategic Income. OSTIX is leading in absolute returns but has more short-term volatility, and I'm just not into that. It's up 5.9% YTD / 5.8% APR over three years.
All of which moves me back closer to my "neutral" position of 50/50 stocks/bonds-cash-alts.

Accounts at financial institutions are considered to be inactive if there has been no activity (aside from automatic divs/interest/CD renewals) for some period of time, often 12 months.
The institution continues to hold your assets, though it may "close" the account, or it may prohibit all transactions (including cashing checks), or it may simply start charging inactivity fees. (Vanguard does not charge inactivity fees.)
There is some confusion about the term "dormancy". Some institutions say that an inactive account is "dormant". That is how Vanguard is using the term according to your post. Others wait until the next phase (below) before calling the account dormant.
A financial institution is required to turn over ("escheat") account assets to your state after some longer period of time. Depending on the state, this is three years or longer. Some institutions say that this is when an account becomes "dormant". Vanguard uses "dormancy" this way in its prospectuses, e.g. for VMFXX:

Dormant Accounts
If your account has no activity in it for a period of time, Vanguard may be
required to transfer [escheat] it to a state under the state’s abandoned property law,
subject to potential federal or state withholding taxes.

https://personal.vanguard.com/pub/Pdf/p030.pdf?2210171184
Until the assets escheat, you can recover inactive account assets by notifying the institution (Vanguard) that you are still alive, still interested in the assets, and go about reactivating the account (or possibly opening a new account).
Note that the rules are more forgiving for retirement accounts. It's a mess that I'm not going to sift through now.
https://news.bloombergtax.com/daily-tax-report/faqs-on-unclaimed-property-aspects-of-retirement-assets
Once burned, twice shy. Wells Fargo did this to me several years ago. Ever since then I've kept a log of the last time I contacted the institution (and what constitutes "contact") or conducted a transaction. When it gets close to a year (even if the institution says it doesn't care about inactivity, just escheatment), I will contact the institution. Or make a $5 deposit, or something.

Stable-Value (SV) Rates, 10/1/23
TIAA Traditional Annuity (Accumulation) Rates
No changes.
Restricted RC 6.75%, RA 6.50%
Flexible RCP 6.00%, SRA 5.75%, Newer IRAs 5.20%
TSP G Fund hasn't updated yet (previous monthly rate was 4.25%).
Options outside of workplace retirement plans include m-mkt funds, bank m-mkt accounts (FDIC insured), T-Bills, short-term brokered CDs.
#401k #403b #StableValue #TIAA #TSP
https://ybbpersonalfinance.proboards.com/post/1197/thread

dtconroe: "Yep, I am also weighing my options of at least devoting part of my portfolio for longer CDs--maybe 2 or 3 year CDs. 2 year CDs have been the longest I have previously invested in, but with 3 year CDs over 5% now, it at least deserves some consideration. With my taxable account, I prefer limiting my CD terms to shorter options of 6 months to a yearfor liquidity purposes, but with my traditional IRA CDs, I am looking closely at longer terms. A 3 year laddering approach looks interesting to me in my IRA account.
For most of my retirement years, I had a target objective of 4 to 6% TR, using low risk bond oefs. It is a little strange to be able to get that so easily with CDs these days."
There is a line of thinking that 10-year treasuries are starting to look good at 4.5%. Unlike CDs they will have a nice CG once 4.5% become history.

Pretty weak article, and poorly written. Hard to figure out what it is saying anyone holds.
Is it counting ETFs as equities? Asked because it separates out investments in mutual funds (17.57% advised, 20.10% DIY).
Cash? 5.70% advised, 15.71% DIY after 2022Q1!. Maybe the DIY'ers had the right idea (whether by luck or not, can't tell from report).
While the article does note that the study is based on Schwab's PCRA brokerage window in employer-sponsored retirement plans (401(k)s, etc.) it does not mention that employees who use brokerage windows tend to be more aggressive investors. Did the study control for that before drawing its general conclusions about all investors?

I came across this link today & post a link, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/schwab-says-double-retirement-savings-171401493.html
Make sure to read the comments as they seem to go against the presented info.

IMO, robo-advisors are nothing more than hyped-up allocation funds that are liked by the younger generation. If one is willing to spend a little time, one can achieve a similar effect with traditional allocation funds (static-allocations; Income, conservative-allocation, moderate-allocation, aggressive-allocation) or TDFs (glide-path allocation). A lot of PR has gone into promoting robo-advisors as something novel when it is just some old wine in new bottles.

No argument here.
The key is the highlighted section. People have to be willing, and interested, in spending a little time. Many are not, though that may seem weird to MFO readers :-).
As to being able to achieve similar effect with TDFs, Vanguard says the same thing. I quoted a portion of Vanguard's disclosure above. Perhaps I should have included more of it, as it echoes what you are saying. In essence, for the extra fee, you get handholding and some advice but otherwise similar investments, especially if one sticks to index funds (a common makeup of TDFs, not just at Vanguard):

Vanguard offers a range of different solutions to help you meet your financial goals, including self- directed brokerage services, single fund investments (such as Vanguard’s Target Retirement Funds), and different investment advisory programs. If you are considering investing through a total market index investment setting, you should understand that each of the Four Totals [Total Stock, Total Bond, Total Int'l Stock, Total Int'l Bond] is a share class of the mutual funds that are used (or are substantially similar to the mutual funds used) in Vanguard’s Target Retirement Funds. In certain circumstances, your recommended standard portfolio will contain identical allocations to the four Total Funds that are available in a Vanguard Target Retirement Fund, which is generally available at a lower cost than the Services.

https://personal.vanguard.com/pdf/vanguard-digital-advice-brochure.pdf
OTOH, if one is willing to spend the time with the advisor, one can wind up with portfolios that are significantly more personalized.

@Sven, age-based funds within 529s operationally work like TDFs for retirement; their glide-paths are to the college age of 18 (vs retirement date of the TDFs). One can mix age-based funds with traditional allocation funds within 529s to achieve a variety of custom glide-paths. But I don't know of a 529 that formally includes a robo-advisor fund within it.
@hank, most performance comparisons of robo-advisors with other funds (TDFs, allocation/hybrid) are for moderate-allocation (around 60-40). There are also variations for MA - MA Aggressive, MA, MA Conservative.
IMO, robo-advisors are nothing more than hyped-up allocation funds that are liked by the younger generation. If one is willing to spend a little time, one can achieve a similar effect with traditional allocation funds (static-allocations; Income, conservative-allocation, moderate-allocation, aggressive-allocation) or TDFs (glide-path allocation). A lot of PR has gone into promoting robo-advisors as something novel when it is just some old wine in new bottles.

In the end, I believe the clients have the equal responsibility to work with their advisors in order to put together a solid asset allocation plan so to meet their future needs.
Wow are you on the mark. I know a few people who are using advisors at different institutions who have little interaction with their advisors - just periodic check ins or reports and conversations about cash flow needs. I was even recently asked to review an advisor's suggestions.
I try to explain: if you are paying for a service, use it. If you don't understand something talk with the advisor. If you're still not comfortable and the advisor won't accommodate you, move.
There are people who want to be completely hands off, or as close as one can get. For them, something like Vanguard Personal Advisor (hybrid robo) with index funds may be a good fit. Handholding, but without the added expense for customizations. For many people here, who take at least a somewhat more active interest, a service like Personal Advisor Select may work well.
Regarding Vanguard's index robo service (with or without human advisor):

If you are considering investing through a total market index investment setting, you should understand that each of the Four Totals [Total Stock, Total Bond, Total Int'l Stock, Total Int'l Bond] is a share class of the mutual funds that are used (or are substantially similar to the mutual funds used) in Vanguard’s Target Retirement Funds. In certain circumstances, your recommended standard portfolio will contain identical allocations to the four Total Funds that are available in a Vanguard Target Retirement Fund, which is generally available at a lower cost than the Services.
You should consider the advisory fees and Vanguard ETFs expense ratios you will incur upon enrollment as well as the personalized features and additional services that are available through each Service in comparison to the lower costs and absence of personalized services of Vanguard single fund [target date] solutions when considering the managed offer.

M* Rekenthaler mentioned exposure to international as one of the main drags on target-date retirement funds in a column this past summer.

Just thought I'd try to show what a dragging portfolio Vanguard's recommended retired fund has been the last year or so. (If readable.)

VTINX Target Income Composition 01/01/2023        Ticker   % portfolio
Vanguard Total Bond Market II                      VTBIX    37.00%
Vanguard Total Stock Market Institutional          VSMPX     18.00%
Vanguard Short-Term Inflation-Protected            VTAPX     16.30%
Vanguard Total International Bond II Index Fund	    VTILX    16.20%
Vanguard Total International Stock Investor Shares  VGTSX    12.50%
VTINX Portfolio                                              100.00%

@msf
Have you used the Schwab WEG group for anything?
The example in the spreadsheet shows without the conversions their tax rate is 22% but in retirement with RMDS rises to 28% and eventually to 33%
With the conversion they start out at 24 to 25% but keep it around 28%
It is surprising that they only save $80,000 in lifetime taxes and it takes until 2041 for them to break even on taxes paid. They come out ahead estate wise by $500,000 and their heirs get the Roth tax free.
So you are essentially paying your heirs tax bill for them.

I always am concerned when you look at their decades long insistence that clients need significant international exposure. At some point that will be called for, but it has not worked for a long time.

M* Rekenthaler mentioned exposure to international as one of the main drags on target-date retirement funds in a column this past summer.
Traditional 60/40 funds have done better in comparison.
It's an interesting read. I won't try to summarize it here. Follow the link.

@hank, I don't know what goes into the models that set portfolio construction. And likely all firms' algorithms are slightly different. No different than a Vanguard retirement fund compared to a TR Price or a Fidelity retirement fund. Do they adjust on all the micro circumstances you mentioned? I don't believe so, and I wouldn't want them to. They would be guessing and screwing up returns just like your average investor does per most investor return reports. The stability and convenience of a robo or a retirement fund is what you are paying for.
I have the Schwab robo. I recently cut it by a third. It has not returned as much as my self-managed portfolio this year. It's biggest drawback has been it's heavy weighting in EM and foreign stocks and it's 12% cash holding that sits in a very low interest savings account, not a money market. That cash is and has always been the fee you pay for the Schwab robo. The12% cash allotment is making almost nothing for me compared to their 5%+ MM in my self-managed. It didn't matter as much in the past, but it certainly does now. I estimate this 12% cash has now become about a 0.6% fee to own the CS robo. That is a fairly large fee in my opinion.

LINK 2
FUNDS. Mid-cap growth JAENX follows the GARP strategy. Its portfolio includes 26% techs, 24% industrials (reshoring themes), healthcare, growth utilities (renewables, grid improvements). (By @lewisbraham at MFO) (Also, a strange placement near the end of the issue)
EXTRA, FUNDS. With the NAMES-RULE, the SEC has cracked down on misleading fund names. Funds must invest 80% of the assets according to what is in their names, e.g. growth, value, big-data, green, AI, etc. When terms are vague, funds must define them along with applicable criteria in their prospectuses and those will become part of funds’ official investment policy. Fund firms with $1+ billion AUM will have 12 months to comply, smaller firms 18 months. Future flexibility will only be during fund launches when it takes some time to build portfolios, but beyond that, any deviations must be fixed within 90 days.
INCOME. As bond-proxies, UTILITIES (XLU, the worst among 11 S&P sectors) have suffered as rates have risen. But rates are peaking, and utilities should have better prospects ahead, especially growth electric utilities, those involved in renewables and improving grid infrastructure. Mentioned are AEP, CNP, NI. (This previously regular column is now ON/OFF)
ECONOMY. A new plan by the LA Senator CASSIDY and the ME Senator KING to fix SOCIAL SECURITY may work. It will leave the SSA Trust Fund (really, an IOU) alone, but would BORROW $1.5 trillion over 5 years to invest in STOCK index funds. The total US stock market-cap is $43.4 trillion, so this inflow shouldn’t cause much disruption (but don’t underestimate the impact of the inflow of $300 billion/yr. That would be almost double of the US IPOs in a best/hot year like 2021) (Also not mentioned is the increase in the US debt, but what is another $1.5 trillion added to $33 trillion?). This stock investment may cover 75% of the SSA shortfall with the rest coming from COST-CUTTING via increasing the FRA (well, this is the US, not France), raising salary caps, adding means test for higher income earners (so, they pay max into the SSA but may be limited in their SSA benefits). (No mention of how/if this $1.5 trillion would be repaid, but keep in mind that Social Security is a mandatory obligation of the government) (By guest author Allan Sloan)
Dave GOODSELL, Natixis Center for Investor Insights. Most Americans aren’t prepared for RETIREMENT and may be overly optimistic. For many, 2022 was a year when reality hit (with bad stock and bond markets). Financial advisors have been suggesting that fixed-income now has generational opportunities, yet the pain isn’t over for many sectors of fixed-income. Allocation 60-40 makes good sense now. SOCIAL SECURITY may cover only 35-40% of retirement needs, and many Americans would have difficult time covering the rest from their portfolios. LONGEVITY is an underestimated risk, higher than what investors perceive in surveys (#1-volatility, #2-risk of loss).
RETIREMENT. A government SHUTDOWN (federal FY24 starts October 1) won’t disrupt the monthly SSA payments (as that is mandatory spending), but other SSA services would be affected. The announcement of COLA (est +3.2%) would be delayed (without the BLS CPI data). We went through the debt-ceiling fiasco earlier this year, and now this.