Independent
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2006
- Messages
- 4,629
I find studies like this are not useful to me.
It seems designed to reach the conclusion it wanted. Target retirement expenses were set at 85% of pre-retirement income. If the retiree was saving 15% or more that amounts to no change in spending. No effort made to adjust for lifestyle. Amounts outside the 401k don't appear to be considered. So, IRAs, pension and taxable savings are all invisible. How many people with a current 401k have their entire retirement savings in that one account? Even if they stayed with the same employer their entire career and that employer was an early adopter of 401k plans, people at retirement age today would have started work before 401k plans existed so looking at 401k balances only is guaranteed to underestimate retirement assets.
It's fun to read and fun to think I am so much better prepared than these people, but I don't think it's solid enough information to make any kind of policy decisions.
+1
It has always been true that many Americans approaching age 60 don't have much going for them other than Social Security. I haven't seen any good studies, that include all of the obvious variables, that say this is any worse than it used to be.