The Great American Do-It-Yourself Retirement Fraud

[zeos3]

http://www.alternet.org/economy/american-retirement-and-fraud

The United States is on the verge of a retirement crisis. For the first time in living memory, it seems likely that living standards for those over the age of 65 will begin to decline as compared to those who came before them—and that’s without taking into account the possibility that Social Security benefits will be cut at some point in the future.

The culprit? That same thing Mathisen celebrated: the 401(k), along with the other instruments of do-it-yourself retirement. Not only did they not make us millionaires as self-appointed pundits like Mathisen promised, they left very many of us with very little at all.

You might be tempted to ask “what went wrong,” but a better question might be “why did we ever expect this to work at all?” It’s not, after all, like we weren’t warned. As early as 1986, only a few years after the widespread debut of the 401(k) and the idea that American workers should self-fund their own retirement accounts based on savings and stock market gains, Karen Ferguson who was then, as she is now, the head of the Pension Rights Institute, warned in an op-ed published in the New York Times, “Rank-and-file workers have nothing to spare from their paychecks to put into a voluntary plan.”

But her voice, and that of other critics like economist Teresa Ghilarducci, who is now at the New School and described our upcoming retirement crisis as “an abyss” in 1994 congressional hearings, were drowned out by the money and power of the financial services industry, combined with their enablers in the personal finance media who proclaim even today that if we don’t have enough money set aside for retirement, it is all our own fault.

[1-Old-Man]

1. Before retirement I worked at a high paying organization, no one had retirement savings

Before I retired and settled back here in the country the place I worked (for the final 20 years) was one of the highest paying organizations in the state. It was a research organization of about 500 people, over a third had PhDs. The pay and benefits were very good and turnover was very very low. Over the years you get close with coworkers and more than one lunch or after work friday over a few beers the discussion got around to retirement. As we all got older that became a more and more common subject. I was always more or less dumbfounded by how so many really smart people who were being paid quite well had not managed to stash away any notable retirement savings. Very few had so much as a quarter of a year's pay tucked away for instance and most, and I do mean most, said they had none. As the years went by more and more of them were saying they would never be able to retire, they would have to work until they dropped. I saved all I could and retired relatively early about a decade ago but an awful lot of the people I worked with are still at it, the ones who haven't succumb to heart attacks, cancer, or strokes that is. I actually knew two people who died at their desks, working up until their last breath. Poor bastards.


Edited to correct gramatical error.

[zeos3]

2. It's amazing how people think things will just work themselves out.

It's surprising how people look at retirement thse days and even more surprising how they seem to think a poor or no retirement will happen to them untilit's too late. The funny thing I've noticed, firemen and police officers seem to pay very close attention to their pensions at all times. At least the ones that I know do. They are among the few who have defined benefit pensions and keep a close eye on them yet keep voting republican. It's a very strange thing to observe.

[customerserviceguy]

3. Of the people who died at their desks

Which one had something set aside to leave to their (non-spouse) family? The ones who had a pension that extinguished at the end of their spouse's life (if he/she didn't die first) or those with 401K's?

Pensions operate on the assumption that future business (weird to say that with government, but essentially true) will generate enough money to pay the pension benefits of those who retire, while collecting just enough from the still-working to stay afloat. That might work well with corporations that grow their markets, but it's not so good for those who work for businesses that become obsolete.