The Morningstar piece is just an interview with Dan Kemp, who has apparently updated a paper he wrote in 2016 on "Safe Withdrawal Rates for Retirees in the United Kingdom". The 2016 paper can be found here:
https://media.morningstar.com/uk/MEDIA/ ... tirees.pdfThe old paper seems to address some of the criticisms here - for example, he is aware of where the 4% figure came from:
"Research by Bengen (1994), among others, suggests an initial safe withdrawal rate from a portfolio is 4% of the assets, where the initial withdrawal amount would subsequently be increased annually by inflation and assumed to last for 30 years (which is the expected duration of retirement). "
He goes on to discuss the problems translating this finding to UK retirees, then proposing alternative ideas. His conclusions begin:
"This paper provides a relatively comprehensive overview of safe withdrawal rates for retirees based on both historical returns and forward-looking returns. Overall these findings suggest that financial advisers and retirees in the United Kingdom should use lower initial safe withdrawal rates than noted in prior research — the lower end of the range now starts towards 2.5% or 3.0% and not the previous 4.0%."
Given that this 2016 version has now been revised, it does not seem too useful to review it in much more detail.
Unfortunately, the revised paper doesn't seem to be published yet - at least, a Google search did not find it. So it appears we just have the spinoff publicity to go on at this point. Perhaps we should wait for the revised paper itself to appear before dismissing it completely!