Posted on 09/07/2013 6:39:30 PM PDT by Toddsterpatriot
According to a new study, the 401(k) savings account isn't adequately providing for people's retirement and is adding to the nation's growing wealth inequality.
The report from the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning public policy think-tank, illustrates how the shift from pensions to individual savings accounts has affected retirees. The authors find that it is the wealthiest workers who are benefiting the most because they can actually contribute enough to make 401(k) plans work for retirement.
"401(k)s were never designed to replace pensions for most workers. They serve primarily as a tax shelter for high earners," said economist Monique Morrissey, the report's co-author, in a statement. "The 401(k) revolution has been a disaster, yet some policymakers are calling for cuts to Social Security, which will be the only significant source of retirement income for most Americans--if they are able to retire in the first place."
Snip...
According to the report:
Retirement-income inequality has grown in part because most 401(k) participants are required to contribute to these plans in order to participate, whereas workers are automatically enrolled in defined-benefit pensions and, in the private sector, are not required to contribute to these plans. Thus, higher-income workers are much more likely to participate in defined-contribution plans. In addition, higher-income workers have more disposable income and a higher investment-risk tolerance, receive larger tax breaks, and are more likely to work for employers that provide generous matches.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
We’ve got about 5 years until we can start draw down without penalty. I hope things hold together that long. We’ll draw the max without penalty for sure.
“You didn’t build that!”
6 Trillion dollar? Not sure about that, you see the 401k “locked up” was never intended to be release. It’s the govenment piggy bank just waiting for rainy day.
Are we being set up for the grab?
Hell, I’d say the grab has been taking place for years and years as inflation reduces the value of all retirement accounts whether 401K, IRA’s or simple savings accounts.
Next, Pelosi will be saying the .gov will have to take your 401k to keep the .gov from taking your 401k.
Only a matter of "When."
Hegelian dialectic at work.
1) The statist establishment creates a crisis by mis-educating the workers for decades.
2) Most workers won’t have any idea of how to calculate their retirement needs (they weren’t taught math or econ. in the publik skools).
3) In comes the “Government Family” on a white horse to save the day.
4) The ‘rich’ who were driven by the ‘perverted profit motive’ to screw the poor, will now have to ‘pay their fair share’. IRAs and 401K’s will be looted to pay for the righteous ignoramuses who voted for a free lunch. Many of them will use their benefits to buy drugs or enter strip clubs.
5) The rest is obvious. USA becomes Peron’s Argentina (run by Evita Clinton), or worse.
Baaaaaaa - Sheeple - Baaaaaaaa.
One might want to investigate what the ridiculous zero percent interest rate is doing to the 401k if your money isn’t growing you don’t have the benefit of compound interest and your money does not grow enough to provide a retirement income. It is just like Social Security which is also tied to a ridiculous interest rate, among other things, like not having the money go into a trust fund for SS recipients and instead being spent in the general fund where it cannot grow. The entire system has been corrupted by the Fed, Congress, and who knows what else.
Ya think!?!
This whole article reads like a how-to-Hate-The-Rich manual. (toss in a few standard digs against whites and anyone with a college degree for good measure).
This must be the current Polish socialist gov’t in action.
They took over after the more conservative PM Kaczynski died in Russia.
No surprises here.
They lean liberal like the CPUSA leans left.
Socialism Is Legal Plunder - "The Law" - Bastiat
There is no end to the machinations of these psychopaths.
Never mind. Tusk is supposedly a ‘center-right’ Prime Minister. That doesn’t mean much in Europe these days.
This is CBS BS. I am a worker and my IRA which I started at 27, has enabled me to become financially independent, even though I have inherited almost nothing.
Now they wanf to steal my IRA to “help” me. Right.
Oh boy... Here comes the drumbeat for the federal government to take over and “manage” private retirement accounts. It starts with propaganda pieces from the state-run news media, like this piece from CBS. Look for one of these (at least) per week.
No kidding. I cry when I see how much my SS would have earned in the market compared to the pittance I’ll receive at 67.
I suspect that the government wil be making a move on these accounts in some fashion soon. The writing is on the wall.
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