“Probably because most don’t save a significant amount in 401k to matter.”
I thought the point of the story was that they did but CPS ignored it. That’s was why their income was greatly underestimated.
I think the real issue is that a very small percentage of the population have substantial IRA accounts. The ones who do, raise the average by a very large amount, but it might be less than 25% of the retired population. The other 75% don't have much.
I am not going to fall into the Obama trap of calling these the "lucky few". Luck has very little to do with having a meaningful IRA. Those who don't have one, think it is all luck and that the government has a duty to even it all out. But those who do have significant savings know that it comes from a lifetime of paying attention, listening to advice about retirement, and actually choosing to defer consumption to a later time.
And, the socialists who look at IRAs and say the top few percent should be taxed more never seem to realize that for most, a larger IRA represents the result of 40 years of doing without new cars, vacations, and lots of things their neighbors considered "necessities".