Most workers who aren’t saving for retirement through their employers aren’t saving at all, the study found
New data suggests the average American worker has under $1,000 saved for retirement.
A report from the National Institute on Retirement Security found that the median savings for all employed adults between the ages of 21 and 64 were approximately $955. The study includes workers with 401(k) and other retirement savings plans, as well as the approximately 56 million workers who do not have access to employer-sponsored retirement plans.
Workers with retirement savings plans have a median balance of approximately $40,000 saved, according to the report. That figure is nowhere near the $1.5 million that Americans say they need to feel comfortable fully retiring.
I sure wish I had 955$ saved!
JFC this is depressing. Hopefully it forces some change though. I like that post about the French boyfriend asking why we don’t burn shit. Hunger will make people burn shit.
6 meals away from anarchy or sumthin
Real talk!
Fucking high rollers over there
My retirement plan is to die at work, that way my family is taken care of. (who am I kidding, my work will try to weasel out of paying them if that happens)
Learn from the French: burn shit before you get to the point of starvation.
I mean, it took starvation for them to start burning shit the first time. But at least they learned from that, and haven’t let it get as bad since then.
This is simply Americans’ first time experiencing the wrong side of the “let them eat cake” thing, so of course it’ll take a long time for America to start lighting things on fire.
Your family will be lucky to get a pizza party.
The pizza dough contains potassium bromate which may be carcinogenic
“He worked so hard, we loved him. Were like family here. KThxBye.”
well the solution is simple: deport brown people, ban trans people and give more money and tax cuts to corporations and billionaires. it’ll all be over soon.
Lots of people saying it’s a skill issue that people aren’t saving more of their earnings. The problem is much deeper: it doesn’t make sense for the majority of Americans to save their money. This is the rational outcome of a political and economic system that does not offer hope, only cynicism.
I’m not from USA so I don’t know what rates of interest your banks offer, but most here offer less than 4%, so there doesn’t seem much point for a few hundred quid.
In the retirement account front, just checked and for the past year it hit 19%, over the last 10 years, it’s been 15% a year. Generally those are biased toward stock and move to more conservative close to retirement. I think that’s generally the balance being considered, at least if you have any retirement account, it’s probably larger than any other account in short order.
For “savings” account recently 4% has been available, but less so now as the central bank turns down interest rates to favor borrowers again. But I don’t think they are limiting to strict savings accounts here. I think money put into an index fund or bonds or CDs would absolutely count.
Social Security was the single greatest transfer of wealth from employers to employees in US history
Sounds like a good thing
That’s why the Repulicans hate it so much.
And you guys don’t have a state pension either, right?
You guys really need to get on with a revolution. Work until you die is kinda supposed to be something we are moving away from
There’s social security, which does give seniors enough to exist, but not much else.
Even SS is indexed by how much you earned as a wage-slave over your lifetime. If you’ve done something other than slaving for the Boss, or if your slaving has been for low pay, you get commensurately less in SS payments and the state will be happy to see you starve and freeze in old age.
That’s unbelievably backwards. I had no idea America designed a system to perpetuate class divide into retirement.
The actual formula is a bit complicated, but it boils down to a few key points:
- you “pay into” the system at a fixed tax rate relative to your income, subject to a maximum cap after which you do not get taxed anymore.
- in order to be eligible for benefits, you need to have 10 years of some amount of income. I think the threshold for that is extremely low, something like $8k/year.
- when you retire, your income from your 35 highest earning years are sort-of-averaged together, subject to that cap I mentioned, to determine a monthly payment.
- But, that value assumes you retire and take payments at 67. Take payments early, and you get less per month. Take payments later, and you get more.
- Of course, none of this is guaranteed for future retirees. Current payments from workers go towards payments to current retirees, with the excess either saved for later or not due to the whims of the current administration. If there is ever not enough money to make payments, everyone likely takes that haircut.
How and why would you save as someone in the US? This country is collapsing.
Even though i’m not an a american I thought it’s a very negative thing to say and considered to argue. I found I have no augment to offer.
Your money/investments/wealth isn’t necessarily limited to just the US. Someone could take their assets and move to a different country and put those assets towards retirement.
The idea that you can’t save because it’s collapsing is just doubling down on sinking with the ship.
The idea that you can’t save because it’s collapsing is just doubling down on sinking with the ship.
What a stupid, dismissive thing to say.
If you can save and get out, good for you.
The vast majority in the US cannot save and I genuinely think trying to is futile, collapse is roaring towards us and given the acceleration of climate change over the last 10 years there isn’t even enough quality lifespan left for many to make saving a rational pursuit in the first place given the extreme poverty trap that the US functions as.
If we have no agency over our lives ending prematurely, the idea of us all transcending this fate through individualized saving is worse than useless.
Your orginal comment asks
why would you save as someone in the US?
implying it isn’t worth it to save anything if you live there.
In the US economically the rich here will not allow the poor to have the breathing room to save, they can’t or else the system of extraction here loses its essential domineering grip.
I would rather flee the country with $955 to my name than with nothing. I’m not saying its easy or a fair system but not even attempting to save because of how fucked things are is just a terrible strategy.
I don’t think you understand the crushing reality of living in poverty in the US. Over 60% of the US lives paycheck to paycheck. That should make it clear that it’s a systemic issue. Some people live above their means by choice, or lack of thoughtful planning. Many people live above their means because the means they have access to don’t cover the cheapest of basics, so we go without. I lived off of one meal a day, all through my 20’s, because that’s what I could afford. Ignorant people lectured me on the importance of saving that whole time. We don’t have a problem understanding the importance of saving. You have a problem understanding the class system in the US.
I would say that is intended. Every day I’m more convinced that the US is the Billionaire playground where they can test out how to press the most money out of the population.
With the big police state and enormous prison capacity ready to counter the eventual revolution.
Perhaps they are suprised themselves that no one revolts as they suck more and more money out of the population and reveal more and more of the degenerate lifestyle of the elites.
“They know that we f*ck and kill children and still don’t revolt? What else do we need to do? We already take nearly all their money. Well, let’s destroy the pension funds, perhaps that does the trick…”
We’re modern history’s largest slave empire. These rich are the descendants of actual slavers who were brutally violent. They treat this place like a plantation. It’s part of the culture of the American ruling class.
