When you post that no one thinks 401k is a poor option for retirement. It means you don't know what you are talking about. You haven't actually researched the 401k.
So my question becomes why defend something you don't know anything about?
Why defend this abstract thing "the 401k" which was created as a way for Kodak to hide the income of two highly paid execs in the tax code over pensions?
Why suggest it is great for retirement without actually bothering to research that claim?
Anyway Here are more links to reality:
Why 401(k)s Have Failed
Unfortunately, while Frontlne's Martin Smith and his many great guests focused on costs (too high), poor guidance and employer neglect, the larger point is that employers don't have to provide 401(k)s at all -- and probably shouldn't.
The 401(k) plan was never meant to be a mainstream pension plan and is a poor substitute for one. It's a voluntary program that was intended to supplement retirement savings -- one of those quirky little options in the byzantine tax code that employers seized upon as a way to save money while pretending that they were doing the right thing by their employees.
The Retirement Revolution That Failed: Why the 401(k) Isn’t Working
Nearly half of all working-age families have no money in retirement accounts at all. The median family has $5,000 saved. Even for people between the ages of 56 and 61, the median retirement account savings is a paltry $17,000. While the top 10 percent have at least $274,000 saved, the bottom 50 percent have next to nothing. “We are moving toward a retirement system that magnifies inequality instead of just reflecting it,” Morrissey said on a conference call Thursday.
This was not always the case. Pensions used to be far more egalitarian, held by people of modest incomes as much as the wealthy. Pensions were even held relatively equally by white and black populations. (Hispanics, Morrissey points out, always lagged behind.)
Is the 401(k) experiment a failure?
You need to know this number: $18,433.
That's the median amount in a 401(k) savings account, according to a recent
report by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Almost 40 percent of employees have less than $10,000, even as the proportion of companies offering alternatives like defined benefit pensions continues to drop.
Older workers do tend to have more savings. At Vanguard, for example, the
median for savers aged 55 to 64 in 2013 was $76,381. But even at that level, millions of workers nearing retirement are on track to
leavethe workforce with savings that do not even approach what they will need for
health care, let alone daily living. Not surprisingly, retirement is now Americans' top financial
worry, according to a recent Gallup poll.
