President Obama is calling on the Department of Labor to crack down on the fees charged by brokers and financial advisers who consulting retirement savers.

The number of U.S. financial advisers fell for the fifth straight year as the industry suffers a continuing wave of retiring veteran advisers, according to a report published Wednesday (Feb. 18, 2015).

There were roughly 285,000 financial advisers in 2014, a 1.9 percent drop from 2013, according to a report by the Boston-based research group Cerulli Associates. The industry has lost more than 39,000 advisers, roughly 12 percent, since its peak in 2008, when there were 325,000 advisers.

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