A new survey shows the significant gap between how much millennials expect they need to retire ($1.7 million) and what they’ve roughly saved so far ($63,000)
Also $1.7m today is like $4m by the time millenials hit retiremwnt.
My company’s 401k person came in to sell their wares, and I did that inflation math in front of them. I think I made a lot of employees afraid for their future.
If you put your money in index funds, you can expect it to beat inflation by about 7-8% on average, especially over the course of a decades-long working career. It’s usually not worth it to ever look at the non-adjusted projected value.
Did they even match? No match is madness.
50% up to 6% (so 3%). But its vested over 5 years… which is a middle finger if you ask me.
Is that vesting for each contribution? For every company I’ve worked at, it’s 0% vested until X years, then 100% immediately vested for all contributions.
It’s 20% per year. It’s not… bad… but this 401k is going to be a joke when I retire.
My company is similar, but over 3 years. It’s a weird way for them to save a few thousand bucks per employee who quits (since you get the full amount by the 3 year mark).
Or gets laid off… if they fire them, they should have to pay 100%
I thought I was doing well and that I had a chance, but saving multiple millions for retirement sounds impossible. If I want retirement, I’ll probably have to move to a low cost-of-living country.
63000 saved?? Yeah sure. Just checked my bank account and I got a whopping $27 in the savings account.
Im guessing they used avg and not median
So If I rob a bank 6 times, I could reach the average savings?
better off robbing poor people, less likely to get investigated
I don’t think they got enough to steal.
Hey at least we have social security to look forward to, right guys? Haha…right? Why you looking at me like that?
Nearly three decades ago, I remember my grandpa being pissed about proposed changes to social security which were supposed prevent it from going bankrupt. When I asked what his solution was, he said that he paid into the system his whole life, and they owe him the full benefits he was promised. He got a lot more pissed when I asked if he was fine with me paying into the system my whole life and getting nothing, but he didn’t really have an answer. And somehow, I’m sure he thought he won that argument.
Ah, yes. The plans laid out by the ultra wealthy bear fruit. We blame and shame each othe while they pay no taxes! Mr. Burns would be proud.
Remember that just five years ago, Trumpcsigned a tax bill that gave the wealthiest amongst us a collective two trillion dollar tax cut that cost me the home interest and local tax deductions i depended upon. My crime was living in a “blue state”.
In addition, the only party with a serious bill proposed to expand Social Security is the Democrats, which would be paid for by raising the cap where taxes are currently paid on only the first $147,000 of earnings. Republicans plan to sunset and privatize all of our benefits, throwing the elderly into poverty just so Wall Street can skim a few billion off the top.
Many many years ago I realized that there would be no social security by the time I retired. Lo and behold Social Security will only pay 70% of its dues 3 years before I retire.
The good news is I’ve been saving for retirement since the age of 25. The bad news is there’s been a plethora of problems that have restricted my ability to save.
Thankfully, I I’m in a way better place than most people. Unfortunately I am still going to fall short.
Same…same. I’m a father of three, single income. I put away about $350 a month into a 401k for retirement. It’s not enough, but between housing, fixing things that break, health coverage, etc. it’s the best I can do.
You may get it, but in the future one dollar will be worth only five cents. You will be paid out in today’s dollars.
My retirement plan is to die in the climate wars.
…this is news?
My plan for retirement is suicide.
Remember don’t be selfish. Take a boardroom down with you.
I will admit the idea has crossed my mind. We will see where things are when I plan to retire.
Retirement plan for me is dead by 60, because climate change will have made living an absolute misery.
This is why I now have a motorcycle.
What is the motorcycle for? Fun because fuck it?
My risk analysis prior was that it wasn’t worth it. That has since changed.
You can still be a vegetable until 80.
Yeah, I gotta get that DNR stuff set up.
Living will
Probably a reference to how many people died because of crashes in them.
Our retirement plans are to sustain ourselves by eating the rich.
The average human body can’t actually sustain a person for a day. People aren’t meant to be cannibals.
No, we eat the rich to send a message.
I’m not saying my retirement plan is a fantasy, but it was last seen hanging out with Bigfoot and a mermaid.
Serious question: Has there ever been a non-violent solution a situation this dire?
Follow-up question: Would this problem be fixable if conservatives were removed from the equation?
We need to get rid of all those old people in office. They don’t care about the future, only about control. They need to go.
Yup. The adults gave themselves the authority to declare perpetual adult swim. And now people are realizing that they’ve spent the entire time shitting in the pool before they die.
successful non-violent revolutions? a few. The Indian Independence movement, The Velvet Revolution, the People Power Revolution, the Singing Revolution…and that’s about it. But keep in mind two of those revolutions were against the Soviets who were quite literally on their way out anyways.
So would a non-violent revolution against the current state of things, at least in North America (Canada is in a similar boat to the US with this) work? doubtful. You already have two liberal governments in power and still nothing is being done. It would be worse if both conservative parties obtained power. Liberals and Democrats will do and say all the things to be the good guys but potentially take money from corporations/the rich to improve the lives of everyone else? no chance in hell, their pockets get lined by the same people as those on the opposite side of the isle.
The “revolutions” you listed were pretty violent. The Indian Independence Movement was famously bloody. Even Ghandi was murdered by conservatives.
Countless protesters were murdered in the Velvet Revolution. The protesters themselves were peaceful: I’ll give you that. But they were slaughtered for 30 years before a transition of government finally happened. Hell, it even started violently as hundrsds of thousands of Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia and slaughtered protesters.
Demonstrators in the Philipines were similarly murdered in ipen, violent fashion in the People Power Revolution. But, yes. The protesters remained nonviolent as entire families were erased by Marcos.
The Singing Revolution was pretty peaceful, but not without violence (see Bloody Sunday of 1991), but I would argue also that Soviet contr of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were almost entirely by declaration rather than direct oppression. As such, the Soviets offered almost no resistance to their declarations of independence. The oppressive conservative machine just didn’t really exist there when the “revolution” happened.
I don’t think there can be truly peaceful coexistence between conservatives and normal people in the U.S. The conservatives will always seek to oppress the normal people. That is just their nature. A cure is technically possible, but it would require following through this time. I just don’t think most normal people have the stomach for that.
You don’t say
Gen X here.
Not going to be able to retire.
I vote we stop posting these articles that continue to assign people motives based on an arbitrary age grouping system. It’s fucking infuriating reading these headlines
then stop reading and commenting on them.
your comment here is an endorsement of this content.
Saying “this content fucking sucks stop posting it” is in no way an endorsement of this content.
Go mow the yard of the house you bought after “working through your 20s” and “not taking vacations every year” you bootstrap puller you, nobody cares.
I don’t read them. I can’t remove them from my feed. And my comment is meant to encourage everyone to stop posting this tripe.
you can block any instance, user, or community with a single click dude.
I’m sorry you don’t understand the difference between a post and an instance/user/community. Dude.
block all three dude.
May?!
ikr? what breaking news too… this person probably thinks we may have a climate problem
This really comes down to who has and hasn’t saved. If you are a millennial that regularly saves into a retirement account you are probably looking good because the market has been good. But not a lot of millennials save for retirement which is the problem. Some of that is low wage, but some of that is bad spending habits.
Housing on the other hand is totally fucked for millennials regardless of what you are saving. If you got a starter home you are unable to sell and upgrade with decent rates. If you are first time buyer there is no inventory for starter homes because folks can’t afford to leave them even if they want to.
I’m a pretty well paid millenial who was saving well. My partner is now disabled and our savings are shrinking from medical bills and supporting her lost wages.
For our generation, to succeed, you need to get obscenely lucky. One disaster can wipe a lot of us out.
I know it will suck if it happens but I think we might be nearing the point of revolution. Shit is really fucking hard and you’re being squeezed from every direction… as an example my employer switched to “an equivalent insurance plan” my dental coverage disappeared and my raise+CoL increase is less than my increased out of pocket for meds - just for myself… my partner’s medical costs are insane.
We exist a bad day away from destitution… and the wealthy and the boomers keep hoovering up “passive income” (i.e. our income).
They say people are only three meals away from revolution. But that’s even meager meals, not just “i can’t afford steak”. So I think we’re still a ways off from most people reaching that point.
People need hope to sustain them, it’s in short supply these days.
I am very sympathetic to this. When I had a friend go through cancer, it made me realize a lot of important things about life. In the middle of that list, but critical in that list of things is paying for supplemental disability insurance. It was like a few hundred dollars a year that is the difference retaining an additional 20% of your salary in disability if needed. I am probably more likely to near term need supplemental disability insurance vs life insurance, and if I’m still alive and thriving and on disability that’s probably a bigger financial drain on my family that sudden untimely death.
Sorry about your partner’s health. I know it’s unlikely, but hopefully things can get a bit better for y’all.
I mean, this is why I left a few potential partners. Because they proved to me after months/years of dating that they were going to be a financial drain on me and they could and would not contribute to the relationship financially. I want a partner, not a dependent.
Just like it’s a choice to have children or not. I’d love to have a kid, or three. but it’s not financially responsible for me to do so.
That is an incredibly callous response to the situation they described. Their partner didn’t decide to be a financial drain. It could happen to you too. All it takes is one bad day and you’re in severe medical debt.
life is callous. and plenty of people decide to be drains who could be productive. it’s also why you buy insurance.
it has happened to me. my dad died and left us with tons of debt when i as 16. and instead of being a whiny bitch about it, i got a job and starting contributing to my family and we were able to pay it off through hard work and sacrifice of luxuries. i was hospitalized for month a few years ago and almost lost my job and had $5000 in unexpected hospital bills. i learned that the only person in life who will ever take care of me… is me, so i decided to take care of me. and now i’m doing great instead of being another whiny entitled millenial who thinks saving is ‘says it’s for my mental health’ when they take empty their savings account to take a vacation to the maldives
you know what’s ironic. I don’t see immigrants making 30K/yr whining about how they can’t afford a home and retirement and education. I see them working their asses off, and making sacrifices to get ahead, applying for scholarships, living at home, working menial jobs and saving where they can. because they aren’t entitled nitwits who think luxuries are a given. they know they have to be earned.
what i see is a lot of entitled upper middle class people with six figure salaries who expected the world to be handed to them getting mad they can’t afford a home/retirement because they are spending $5000+ vacationing each year and five figures on other luxuries while they doomscroll on their $1500 phones and whine about how unfair their life is and how unhappy they are and how much their therapy costs them and they will never be able to retire! yeah… no shit they won’t… because unlike the immigrant they are lazy entitled idiots who refuse to be responsible for their own futures.
I mean, I don’t disagree with you, but we both know people will reject that as government overreach and call it socialism. Esp in the USA culture, people are in love with their own ignorance above all else and will justify to you how their 10 year car loan is ‘worth it’ despite the objectively poor choice that it is.
i love how common sense and self-responsibility get downvoted to oblivion on lemmy.
vast majority of millenials in my area have high wages… they just spend more than they make and whine about it. they refuse to become adults and save.
sure, if you live in bumfucksville and you are a cashier at a gas station with a HS diploma, yeah you can’t save. but if you’re a programmer who is 35 and living in debt, that’s your own damn fault, nobody else’s. where I live most millenails are the latter, and 75% of their conservations are whining about life is unfair because they can’t get the 5 million dollar home in the elite town they want.
I think the personal responsibility experiment of 401k’s is proving to be a failure. Yes, responsible people with sufficient incomes are somewhat at fault for not using the available retirement vehicles. But if individuals can’t be trusted to tend to their own future, we should probably be mandating retirement savings. And with that increasing minimum wage and considering UBI’s to make it reasonable for people save and have money in retirement.
But thanks for the sympathy for the downvote brigade. Merely suggesting personal responsibility seems to bring on the hate in lemm personal finance discussions. I have coworkers and friend’s with 6 figure incomes, top 75% of USA household incomes. They hardly use their 401k’s and use Roth IRAs when they have the means to be maxing those out.
I mean, I don’t disagree with you, but we both know people will reject that as government overreach and call it socialism. Esp in the USA culture, people are in love with their own ignorance above all else and will justify to you how their 10 year car loan is ‘worth it’ despite the objectively poor choice that it is.
My favorite irony is telling people I use savings and 401K matching and them telling me that I am ‘wasting money’ saving/investing because ‘you’ll just die of cancer in the future before you can spend it’. It’s just… pure bitterness and a willful lack of self-respect.
I love the comments in these discussions that are like “Fuck hedge funds, fuck investing, fuck the stock market, fuck 401ks. Bring back pensions.” And then I have to explain that pensions are investing in the stock market and actually own like 20% of common traded mid and large size company stock. Apparently folks want the benefit of being in the stock market without the personal responsibility to do it themselves, but in the process get to hide their guilt of personally investing in the market themselves. But that’s okay, and that’s why I think we probably should have mandatory minimum retirement savings and investment programs.
I’ve got a quarter of million in my retirement fund and it’s got another 30 years to go before I retire. I’m good, thanks. I also bought a place a few years ago.
But I didn’t spend my 20s partying and living in debt like many of my peers. I lived simply, paid off my student loans, and started saving. They made their choice, now they have to live with the consequences. each iphone you buy, each grubhub you order, each vacation you take… is money you are spending now that could be in your retirement account.
I’m sick of hearing about whiny idiots who refused to grow up and learn to save who are mad they have nothing in their bank accounts… because they did… they just choose to spend it all on vacations, booze, and grubhub. and i’ve been working steadily instead of fucking off every year or two to ‘travel the world and become worldly’. if you are quitting your job every 18 months to fuck off for six… it’s no wonder you’re not getting a good wage.
Ok boomer
You are placing a lot of unwarranted faith in remaining healthy into retirement and your savings being enough for whatever situation we face them.
My dad decided to save up and wait until retirement to do some travel he wanted to do. A couple years later he has a major health issue and is unable to travel like he wanted to.
I don’t begrudge anyone enjoying themselves with the time they have while they are young and healthy.
So what should I assume? that’ i’m going to get cancer in 5 years and therefore spend everything i have now so i can start living paycheck to paycheck? on what? hookers and blow? travel? stupid shit that will give me a few moments/days of happiness now so i can live in poverty in my old age?
life is about choices. make your own. but don’t expect them to not have predictable consequences and get mad that those consequences happen. I made mine. and i do very much begrudge bitter people who made poor choices who blame others for making good ones that benefit them life-long.
all i see in these articles is wealthy folks whining because they have no self-respect and no self-control and want to blame other folks for it rather than taking charge of their lives. but hey, i’m a ‘privileged’ asshole who has had to deal with early parental death and my own serious medical issues that made me realize nobody is bailing me out of my own shit in life other than myself.
Sure, it’s all about choices. You’ve made your own. Hopefully you’re able to enjoy your retirement. But if those choices don’t work out, hopefully you’re not bitter and blaming others.
i have a lot to be bitter about to compared to my peers. and i chose to take that and do something positive with it and contribute to the world.
and yet they are the ones whining about life isn’t fair and mean to them. ironically these nitwits are also against ‘government handouts’… except when the handout is to THEM. then they are all for it.
You sound quite embittered. Try taking a vacation.
