Four years removed from the high-wire act of promoting stable, noninflationary economic growth, Roger W. Ferguson Jr. has taken on another seemingly insurmountable objective: trying to get anxious workers who saw a good chunk of their nest eggs evaporate in the financial meltdown to boost their retirement savings.

Mr. Ferguson, former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, was in Pittsburgh last week visiting clients of his current employer, TIAA-CREF. Founded in 1918 by Andrew Carnegie as a pension plan for professors, TIAA-CREF manages about $426 billion for 3.7 million active and retired employees in more than 27,000 retirement plans.

Framed in the context of a recession that has elevated the profile of thrift as a virtue, the failure of many to save enough for retirement is "a chronic problem against the backdrop of an acute problem," Mr. Ferguson said.

While he is encouraged by the uptick in personal savings over the past two years, "The truth is there is really much more to be done," Mr. Ferguson said. He cited a recent McKinsey and Co. survey that estimated the average U.S. couple will be $250,000 short of what they need when they retire.

Mr. Ferguson's gospel of retirements savings has four components: adequate funding; diversification; access to sound, objective advice; and a guaranteed portion of retirement income that will cover your basic needs.

Setting aside 10 to 14 percent of pretax income over their working lives should allow workers to build a portfolio that will generate what they'll need in retirement, Mr. Ferguson said. Even without considering the recession has deprived millions of paychecks and shrunk the paychecks of millions more, that's a formidable target.

According to mutual fund giant Vanguard, the average U.S. worker contributes almost 7 percent of pretax income to a 401(k) plan. Adding the average matching contributions made by their employers brings the contribution rate up to 9.4 percent, just below Mr. Ferguson's targeted savings range.

However, about a quarter of the workers eligible to participate in a 401(k) plan don't, according to Vanguard and Hewitt Associates, a benefits consulting firm. Combine that with the 50 percent of American workers who Mr. Ferguson said do not have access to a retirement plan at work and you get an idea of the magnitude of the retirement savings challenge.

Still, workers should start saving whatever they can, whenever they can, Mr. Ferguson said.

Federal legislation enacted in 2006 that gave employers the ability to automatically enroll employees in 401(k) plans is boosting retirement savings, Mr. Ferguson said. Another option would be to allow employers to periodically increase the percentage of pay deducted. That would require new legislation, he said.

Most retirement savings plans offer enough options for investors to build a diversified portfolio, Mr. Ferguson said. If anything, some plans provide too many options, which only confuses investors, he added. That's why he believes it is important for investors to have access to sound objective advice. "Individuals, with the right kind of help, can get it right," Mr. Ferguson said.

He cited a recent TIAA-CREF survey that concluded college and university workers are more confident about their retirement savings that the average worker. The study, released in June, found that 80 percent of higher education employees were either very or somewhat confident about their retirement income outlook vs. 54 percent for all U.S. workers.

Mr. Ferguson acknowledged colleges and universities generally offer more generous 401(k) matches than private industry, but there are other reasons why college and university workers are so confident. The study showed 95 percent of higher education workers are saving for retirement vs. 60 percent of all workers.

Moreover, half of them had sought advice from a financial adviser within the past year. Only a third of U.S. workers could say the same thing, the report stated.

The final leg of Mr. Ferguson's strategy is establishing a source of guaranteed income that, along with Social Security, will pay for your basic retirement needs. Annuities, which provide regular income, are the answer, he said.

The problem is that fewer than 25 percent of retirement plans give workers the option of converting a portion of their savings to an annuity when they retire, according to the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America. Insurers also need to offer more affordable, easier to understand annuity products, Mr. Ferguson said.

There is also the issue of inflation. Fixed annuities, whose payments don't increase over the life of someone's retirement, won't keep pace with increased costs for food, health care and other items as a person ages. So retirees should invest a portion of their annuity money into products that offer the prospect of increasing monthly payments, he said.

As daunting as the retirement savings problem is, getting started late and saving something is better than doing nothing, Mr. Ferguson said.

"The biggest problem, I think, is just getting started," he said.

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