43% have less than $10k for retirement

[TwixVoy]

Source: CNN

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The percentage of American workers with virtually no retirement savings grew for the third straight year, according to a survey released Tuesday.

The percentage of workers who said they have less than $10,000 in savings grew to 43% in 2010, from 39% in 2009, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's annual Retirement Confidence Survey. That excludes the value of primary homes and defined-benefit pension plans.

Workers who said they had less than $1,000 jumped to 27%, from 20% in 2009.

Confidence in ability to save enough for a comfortable retirement hovered at 16% of respondents, the second lowest point in the 20-year history of the survey.

Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/09/pf/retirement_confidence/

[warm regards]

1. Whoa...that is sad.

[Xenotime]

64. Sad indeed. So now here is the question.....

Do you penalize those who have less than 10k? Or do you tax those that have over...say..100k to help out those who are in need of good retirement balance?

[Raven]

2. This simply cannot be true! If it is, we have a huge problem. n/t

[valerief]

9. How can you not know it's true? Everything coming in goes out to bills. nt

[ngant17]

29. are you from planet Earth or what?

those numbers are only surprising in that it probably underestimates the amount of poverty here in the USA.

The Gini coefficient of inequality pretty much explains some of that. It's getting bigger every year, IOW the inequality in the US is increasing each year.

[tonysam]

58. It is. It's very simple to lose all of your savings

when you're laid off.

All I have to show for 35 years is a state pension which will be less than 500 a month if I wait until I am 65 to collect and a pittance in Social Security.

[Sub Atomic]

3. I used to have money for retirement.

Long-term unemployment has sure ended that.

[Dappleganger]

8. +1

[bulloney]

17. Long-term unemployment and a volatile, crappy stock market. And they want to end Social Security?

That stat is alarming. There will be few people retiring at 65, or 70 if they only have $10,000 or less in their nest eggs.

[northofdenali]

22. Exactly, Sub Atomic. Plus exhorbitant medical bills.

Even with insurance.

We have less than nothing for retirement - and will probably lose SS to the repukes as well.

[avaistheone1]

26. This is the unravelment of the American dream.

It is more like the American nightmare.

[RainDog]

49. yeah, well, you get a bunch of seniors with nothing to lose

the gray panthers may take on new meaning.

[Lorien]

33. Occational unemployment/ under employment and medical bills wiped out mine

[SOS]

53. +1

In 2000, we were in good shape.
2010: Wiped out

[supernova]

59. +2

[azmouse]

4. When so many live paycheck to paycheck (if they are lucky enough to have a job)

what is left to put aside for a retirement that probably will never happen for them.

I feel so fortunate to be able to save.

[JCMach1]

46. Life was paycheck to paycheck when I lived in the States...

No possibility of savings...

[Mike 03]

5. Extremely frightening. It is hard to even know what to say about this, but sadly it does not

shock or surprise me. NT

[Doremus]

6. Thread directly below: H-1B applications to be accepted from April one

One of the reasons workers have less money saved for retirement.

[onethatcares]

7. 30 years of reagonomics, trickle down theory and the race

to the bottom have all contributed to the decline. Jeeez, I'm a just a carpenter and can see that. I mean, what the hell do you expect with stagnating wages, increasing costs for fuel, insurances, education and every other item under the sun sure as hell doesn't leave much for the good old bank account that pays .0235% on savings while you have to pay 16.27% on loans.

We're screwn.

[progressoid]

12. +1

[Itchinjim]

15. You are not "just a carpenter"

You are a Carpenter. You add more value to our society than all the bankers, lawyers, CEOs or MBAs combined. Let those leaches try to build or wire or plumb their own McMansions. They are screwn without Labor.

[SimonPhoenix]

45. Ya

And when you people finish bashing the doctors on here and they all retire, are you going to be able to re-attach your own thumbs?

[pipoman]

52. I don't see actual bashing of doctors as much as

criticism of perceived greed of doctors at the expense of society.

[SOS]

63. "bankers, lawyers, CEOs or MBAs"

Where is the doctor bashing?
Can't find it.

[OhioChick]

10. K&R n/t

[CountAllVotes]

11. with interest rates at 1.25% if lucky

you'll never save enough money to retire on!

:kick:

[JCMach1]

47. Exactly, little incentive at those rates...

[CountAllVotes]

60. recently I opened an online savings acct.

it is with American Express. The rate was 1.49% the day I opened it and the next day it dropped to 1.30%.

Can't win for shit it seems.

What is the point in trying to save at such a low rate? Who makes any money at all?

The banks spend more sending out there stupid paper statements than they spend on paying interest!

:mad: :grr: :argh: !!!!!

:dem: :kick: :kick: :kick:

[WriteDown]

13. Does anybody really save anymore though?

Seems like most of my friends spend their money on nice dinners and flat screen TV's these days. At least the one's with jobs. I even know some with kids who aren't putting anything away for college.

[JCMach1]

48. Overall U.S. Savings Rate at Depression levels

http://business.theatlantic.com/assets_c/2010/01/savings%20rate%202010-01-20120.php

[WriteDown]

55. That is pretty much what I thought. nt

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

50. that is my brother right there,

I'm letting my brother and his girlfriend live in my house while I work in Canada on the condition he SAVE what they were paying in rent, where did the savings go?

New NHL quality hockey equipment and his girlfriend is leasing a new SUV. I have just sort of accepted the fact I am going to wind up taking care of him and a series of sports injuries are going to limit the types of work he can do as he ages. I don't want to even imagine what his situation would be without the decent health insurance he has given he has destroyed his knees and had several concussions.

[WriteDown]

54. That's got to be frustrating.

My two sisters are on their own :).

[quaker bill]

14. The magic of the 401K

I worked 5 years for a company with one, I had $1200.

My wife did a bit "better", for 10 years of service, she had $1,600.

Fortunately, I did my own saving and investing, so i am a bit better off than these folks, not alot.

That being said, I chose a job that paid a bit less, but had a defined benefit pension, I am now quite thankfull to be fully vested, and not in the market in any serious way.

[lib2DaBone]

16. !0K?.. I'd love to have $10K in my retirement.. .

I used to have a 401K that I worked 20 years to build.. until Geithner and the boys got their hands on it...

Now.. I will work until I am 90 years old.. if I live that long..Maybe I'll live to 80...who knows..

[lib2DaBone]

18. I forgot to mention...

.. the Banksters and the Senators did their job very well.. they stripped every penny away from Americans near retirement.. well done!

[nightrain]

19. knr. yep, that's the situation these days. And out of the measley

income many of us are supposed to afford 5K or more for disease management insurance??!!??

I'm listening to Ed Schultz go on and on about how he's "supporting the President", but he's not talking about how unaffordable these bills are for medium income people! And what about the 3x cost for older people?!

[Hawaii Hiker]

20. It's not that surprising as wages have FLAT-LINED in last couple decades

Seriously, what the "F" does a 3% raise get you, it's no wonder people are borrowing against their pension funds, etc....I know were supposed to believe that condasending BS about being lucky to have a job, but i don't buy that....Employers should be glad they have dedicated, hard-working employees, it is a 2-way street..

People get blasted for not saving enough, but many (people's) salaries are stuck in the early 1990's, while costs have sky-rocketed....

[XemaSab]

21. And how much debt do people have?

Wage stagnation is real, and it's going to cripple at least one generation if not two. :(

[closeupready]

36. Next up, a bill to make 401(k)'s lien-able.

You just watch. Those vampires won't be happy until they have sucked you dry, every last drop.

[DCBob]

23. I dont think this includes the equity or non-equity in their homes.

Which can be a big factor for many.

[InkAddict]

41. What home? That's gone too! n/t

[mitchum]

24. Hell, I have less than $10 for retirement

[proteus_lives]

25. I'm lucky, I have a retirement fund I can't touch.

[Endangered Specie]

27. and thats exactly why people call me cheap...

cause I'm way south of that figure, trying to catch up!

[MidwestTransplant]

28. Isn't a more releveant statistic what percentage over say 45 have less than 10K

[JBoy]

35. Agree.

I wouldn't expect a 25 year old with college debt, or a 30 year old couple with a big mortgage to have saved up anything "for retirement". Great if you can do it, but paying off debt should always be a higher priority.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

37. Yes (though I suspect that might be scarier)

The problem with this story is that it lacks some depth.

This is based on the EBRI survey of 1,153 U.S. workers and retirees, age 25 and older, in January. But how does that all break down by age?

People in their 20s - even in good times - rarely save for their retirement because they rarely make enough, often are taking on other debt to survive and paying off student loans (if lucky enough to go to college and lucky enough to get loans). People in their 30s are typically spending money on first home purchases and putting shoes on the kids, leaving little money for retirement savings. It is in one's 40s and 50s that people once hit peak salaries with lowered debt ratio and people started to get serious about retirement.

However, over the past decade, I would *suspect* that the average retirement savings for people in their 40s and 50s has taken a bigger hit than the larger age spread shown in this survey. And for a number of reasons. Wages have been flat for so long in this country (for those of us lucky enough to keep working), ability to participate in a defined pension plans (though not part of the calculation of this story) are on the decline, the cost of everything is up over the past decades. While we are a consumer-driven society (remember when the gov't. wanted us to be a manufacturing/producing society?), I know of few people buying expensive toys ... most everybody I know, regardless of where they are financially, have spent the past 30 years simply trying to break even.

Yeah, I *suspect* that if the story broke this down to retirement savings outside homes and defined pension plans for those 45 and older, the results would be even scarier. Hope I am wrong.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

30. This is a tragedy in real time, right now.

My rose tinted glasses are long gone.

[UpInArms]

31. flashback 1980s:

http://www.greatchange.org/ov-martin,case_for_sedition.html

The market did not reach its bottom until December 4, 1989, and enormous amounts of money were made in that period of time. It's a zero sum game. What was being done again is shifting money from the American citizen, this time in his capacity as an investor, to the all-powerful Bush Cabal. Previously we had simply been shifting money to the all-powerful Bush Cabal through citizens wearing their hats as taxpayers.

The Bush idea was (I remember Jeb used to say this) that, "Look, you hit them in every single hat they wear." That was the idea. He used to call them fodder. You hit the fodder in their hats as Taxpayers. You hit them in their hats as Investors and Savers. You hit them in their hats as Insurance Policy Owners through all these insurance scams his brother was involved in. Then there was, of course, Jeb's International Medical Corporation. Jeb also liked health care scams. But that was the idea the Bushes had, that you take the American taxpayer (which they called "One Fodder Unit," or OFU) and you hit them in every single hat they wear.

I don't know where the term came from, but "One Fodder Unit" became a popular term on the Republican cocktail party circuit in 1985. According to them, each individual American citizen equals One Fodder Unit.

Today we have the results of that. When George Bush left office, the federal budget deficit was actually twice what they claimed it was. They were able to hide about half of the federal budget deficit through the Bush Regime. Then Clinton came in, and he had a pretty good idea of what the problems were up front. That's one reason why he kept Alan Greenspan, by the way. It was because the marketplaces both here and abroad had a lot of faith in Greenspan. He told Greenspan early on that we're going to have to bring interest rates down and flood the market with money, which was done in '93. Interest rates fell precipitously, and then there was the sharp spike in '94. This was necessary to bleed some of the problems out of the economy.

After Bush got out of office, it was important that the economy be re-liquefied as quickly as possible, regardless of the inflationary impact. You can always control the inflationary impact later on by raising the interest rates.

[customerserviceguy]

32. Count me as one of them

And I'm 54. But I finally got my debts under control, and even with a part time job (thank goodness it's union) I will be able to increase my savings significantly. I aim for the goal of being able to stick half of my pay in the 401K by the end of this year.

If I can do that for the next dozen or so years, I might have enough to get by in retirement, as I sure as hell am not counting on Social Security, if it exists when I'm old enough to apply for full benefits, then great, but like I said, I'm not counting on it. I fully expect that a future US government will tell me that getting SS and having a tax-deferred retirement is some kind of a "double dip", and will not allow both.

I sure as hell don't plan on being one of the suckers who turns in their tax-deferred retirement plan for Social Security, that deal will only last another ten years, max.

[scentopine]

34. Some have more than $10,000 savings? Our corporate run government is surely outraged at

this oversight and will launch a bi-partisan investigation into who is responsible for this gross negligence and put more "reform" legislation into place to prevent it from happening again.

[Tailormyst]

38. I have no retirement money

I have no savings at all. Shit, most weeks I barely make it to the next paycheck. I suppose I will have to make due with SS and live with one of my boys, like people used to do.

[Happy Hippy]

39. Well.....

What about social security? Either that "counts" or it doesn't. If you are being made to pay it - then they will need to pay it. I pity the party that will break the news that Gen X and Y won't be getting a nickel for the thousands they have paid into SS over the course of their careers.

[Blue-Jay]

40. Social Security is an insurance plan

NOT a personal savings account. This story is talking about personal savings. For many, Social Security will be all that they have. That's the point.

[SomeGuyInEagan]

42. Additionally, the survey does not include home ownership or defined pension plans in the equation

Though ability to participate in a defined pension plan has decreased greatly over the past 30-40 years, so that really is not an option for many of us (and for those of us who have it, I seriously question how much of it we will see ... we've seen a lot of companies trying to default on the pension agreements that they AGREED to in negotiations ... we, as taxpayers, will no doubt have to clean up more of those messes since some (many?) companies seriously underfund their pension obligations).

And we've all seen what has happened to housing values, for those of us lucky enough to keep our houses.

I was long ago advised that retirement was meant to be funded by a combination of pension plans, personal savings and assets and Social Security. Looks like all three legs of that stool are in sorry shape right now, though I still think this story lacks depth (a more important question is how many 45 and older do not have more than $10k in personal retirement savings - I suspect quite a few and that is really scary).

[Happy Hippy]

44. .

Go look up retirement insurance benefits and get back to me. When this massive ponzi scheme collapses, all of those who paid the benefits for older generations will be left out in the cold. If they can't return it when I retire, then stop taking it.

[Bigmack]

56. The GenXers and GenYers are gonna...

have to get off their asses, get political, and remove that cap. Then they can draw, too.

[amyrose2712]

43. That would be a big fat goose egg for me...

Ended up bar tending for 10 years while trying to finish college on student loans through a medical problem with no health insurance.

[HughBeaumont]

51. That's called a soaring cost of living and no adequate wage to match it.

Courtesy of your friends at GOP, Inc. and FreeTraitors.CON

[SomeGuyInEagan]

57. Ding, Ding, Ding ... correct answer!

[flamingdem]

61. This is telling. I always wondered what the numbers are.

whoa, I see a lot of trailer parks sprouting up..

[xxqqqzme]

62. I had more than that set aside but

last year wiped out about 1/3. With costs rising, and trying to help my son with his new family...it's a struggle.

[bamacrat]

65. This perfectly illustrates my point when people say we should privatize Social Security.

The people who save for retirement on their own don't really need Social Security all that much, but there are over 150 million people that don't. If all of a sudden Social Security was no longer taken out of peoples checks and they were told to save on their own, we would have rampant elderly poverty and lowered life expectancies. Which is why SS was created, because so many people needed that money so the spent it then when they got old they either had to work until they died or if they couldnt work be homeless. It's a fantasy to think that all people will save and make sure they have enough money for when they are older but the reality is that most do not. So SS is good.