Free Republic

An obscure paragraph added to the Revenue Act of 1978 by an unknown author has drastically changed the way Americans save for retirement and, possibly, how they vote. Over the past 25 years, since a 38-year-old retirement consultant in Philadelphia got IRS approval to establish the first tax-deferred account system, 401(k)s have exploded, dramatically increasing the nation's investor class and boosting individuals' total savings. Economic and political analysts say 401(k)s have enriched millions of American workers, particularly lower-income people, and their longer-term impact on the economy, especially investment capital formation, and the electorate is now coming into fuller view. "The...

NEW YORK - The majority of American workers think they'll be able to retire comfortably, but most aren't saving nearly enough to meet that goal, according to a new study. The Employee Benefit Research Institute's annual retirement confidence survey, released Tuesday, found that about 68 percent of workers are confident about having adequate funds for a comfortable retirement, up slightly from 65 percent in 2005. At the same time, more than half of all workers say they've saved less than $25,000 toward retirement, according to the Washington, D.C., based research group. Even among workers 55 and older, more than four...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. consumer spending rose 0.2 percent in October, as expected, driving the personal saving rate into negative territory for the fifth straight month, a government report showed on Thursday. Personal income also rose in October, by 0.4 percent - slightly less than the 0.5 percent increase forecast by Wall Street, the Commerce Department said. That followed an outsized 1.7 percent rise in income in September, which was driven by insurance payments in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The department's inflation measure - closely watched by policy-makers at the Federal Reserve - rose just 0.1 percent...