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this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2023
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Yay, wealthier Millennials? Way to grind that 401K
That was my take away. If you earn a lot of money you can fund a good retirement.
The only other real argument I found was that millennials in general may be better off because they entered the workplace when these retirement plans activate automatically whereas boomers and gen x had to actively sign up for them.
Your retirement plan activated automatically?
I think what they meant was 401k enrollment is now included in new employee onboarding by default in most places now.
You can be an employee at places still? /j
It's a good question for all the contractors
Ive still never had that, Im over 30 and the only retirement account I have I made myself outside of work.
Any medium or larger company will give everyone a 401k because it is good for the executives and 401k rules require you offer them to everyone not just the high wage earners (there are exceptions to this rule). Plus investment companies make is relatively easy to offer this type of thing to everyone.
I work in Human Care like about 25% of millennials, I don't know many people whos orgs offered retirement to them, a lot make their employees purchase insurance through the ACA, ive seen 'How to apply for ACA' in onboarding handbooks and handouts, but retirement is rarer.
IRS defines 403B plans, which are similar to 401k, but specific to teaching. Also public school teachers have retirement plans through unions (at least in NY, MA, CA)
You can't trust pensions. Goldman Sachs will just dump it all in mortgage backed securities
This is one way 401k and similar plans are better than pensions: you own the money, immediately
While pensions were historically a lot higher value, there have been too many ways to lose it. Not spend ten years at the company? Gone. Company goes bankrupt? Gone. Company not funding their commitment? Gone.
With a 401k, I own the money immediately, can take it with me no matter how short term an employee I am, keep it even if the company is bankrupt, and most importantly, I decide how to invest it (that could be bad but it’s still my choice)
My employers 401k plan was automatic. Let it sit for 3 years and came on hard times around 2021. I actually lost ~15% of the money I put in. Cashed it out, opted out of automatic contributions and haven't looked back. I don't need some investment firm to lose my money for me, I'm already good at that on my own lol
Please revisit. That’s usually a bad idea. Yes, aggressive investments can lose money in short terms like one year or less - actually there was a long term piece of advice to not invest in stocks any money you need for the next five years. However prudent investments, like an SP500 index fund , have always increased in value in like ten year periods, and over some similar period have always beaten inflation
There’s a lot to learn about investments, but
401k’s can be VERY useful to most of us over the long term, so you should reconsider whether it’s good for your situation too
If I had the funds to invest, I would probably have a Roth IRA or something simple but the hard times never let up. I work 60 hour weeks and still live paycheck to paycheck. I've only earned enough in the last couple of months for me to get health insurance again. I can't afford to give even 3% of my paycheck away (the minimum for my company to begin matching) at the moment and that's not likely to change in the next year or two.
I really do appreciate the concern and if I were in a different place, I'd reconsider. I was being a bit bitter and sarcastic in my comment but I'm in no.position to save any money
You sold when it was 15% down? And outside of retirement?
For the love of god, don’t touch your retirement savings. Consider reading this series:
https://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/
I needed what little was in that account because my car shit the bed on me and the repairs were more than the car was worth. Had to take that and my stimulus check to buy another beater. I'm still paycheck to paycheck and couldn't afford to start my savings back up if I wanted to
I see. I’m sorry about your situation.
All good! I appreciate the advice, genuinely
Let me guess, you are in USA? Only there you'd be so car-dependent.
You don't trust the pieces of shit my taxdollars bailed out in 2009? Why don't you trust those peices of fucking shit?
Staying out of the stock market will ensure you won’t have enough to retire on.
Here kid, have a bitcoin
Oof. By the time you learn you were wrong, it’ll be too late.
Actually it's required if you're over the age of 30. Below that age, you can delay it. Once you hit 50, the percentage input increases significantly. I work as a state employee so it's different than in private sector.
I think that even corporations are just enrolling people though too.
It has always been that way. More millennials than any previous generation are able to fund a good retirement is a large take away.
Many still are not funding a [good] retirement, but overall Millennials are better than their predecessors.
Pay my student loans. Yes you personally
Weird to determine retirement spending based on annual income instead of annual spending. Like, if someone is only spending 40% of their income now, why would they assume they are going to increase their spending by 65% when they retire? Or otoh, if someone is spending 95-110% of their income now and that's mostly housing and food, why would they only need 68% when they retire (especially if they're accumulating debt)? I'm sure its mostly a result of that data being a lot easier to get and may be using assumptions about how many years someone is working and assumed savings rate required to get that amount of money (heuristics like if you have a constant inflation-adjusted income and save 30%, it takes about 30 years to save enough to retire)?
70th percentile is only ~$120K/year. A lot more than I make, but not exactly what I'd be using "wealthier" to describe, even if just as a comparative. Even at like 90th percentile (~220K/year) would still just be in the "well off" category in my mind.
I suggested an alternative semi-standardized metric that still wouldn't describe everyone perfectly, but I suspect would do a better job than the one used. I don't think its weird to use one. I think the one chosen is weird, even if I acknowledged one of the reasons why they probably used it (easy of data). Current spending would still be a terrible estimate for the FIRE-types who work in HCOL places and move to LCOL places for retirement, but I think it would much better account for ordinary 25th percentile income households who live paycheck to paycheck. But I doubt Vanguard really cares if their metrics are useful for poorer people who live paycheck to paycheck since its obvious they're not going to have enough anyways and not exactly their target demographic.
You're getting at my favorite article of all time, The Shockingly Simple Math of Early Retirement. Say what you will about Mr. Money Mustache or even early retirement in general, but this article really is the absolute simplest and best way to think about retirement savings. It's why I often feel poor or pressed for money but never worry about retirement, because I max it all and pay myself first, and I know as long as my percentage is high I'm on track.
Plus even before I could max my 401k and Roth (and we recently had a kiddo so had to stop Roth for a bit) or get a high savings rate, I put in way more than was comfortable because the power of compounding is worth rice and beans and not going out drinking for a bit. Now that I'm middle aged my nest egg is huge, and we've been slowly able to lifestyle inflate. But I am soooo glad my younger self saved like crazy. Time flies by, and money compounds before you know it.
People tend to spend what they earn. I have to be careful not to spend more than my paycheck every month. I know people who make less than half what I do who still do okay in life - they don't have as nice a house or as many toys, but they have food on the table and a warm roof. I know from experience that I could cut how much I spend every month by a lot - I just don't want to cut those extras from my life.
Many people are working long hours now saving for retirement when they plan to travel, and thus they think their spending will be more in the future. I know some who did that for years, and got cancer and died before their planned retirement age. I know others who have been traveling the world carefree for a couple decades after retiring.
They should be investing in a Roth account instead of standard 401k if possible. Unless you're sure that income taxes will be lower when you need to take out that money. Roth investing pays the tax up front, and the rest is yours to keep even after it appreciates in value over time.
A 401k lets you make money on the part that would have otherwise gone to taxes. Can you show an example with numbers where paying tax up front comes out ahead of paying tax at the end?
Maybe if you assume healthcare stays as-is, you may be able to use roths to keep your taxable-income low enough to stay under the magic number required to get the deductible/max year out of pocket savings and the potentially ~$4000s of dollars a year savings in health care costs.
Numbers:
Hypothetical case: need 30K/year after taxes if getting the MYOP savings or 34K/year after taxes if not and assuming you put in all your money now and wait 30 years to retire using 5% average returns. Assume 4% WR and 27K is the threshold for extra savings. All numbers adjusted for inflation.
t401k:
Need ~213k now -> 921k in 30 years (which would be ~850k after taxes on the gains)
r401k:
Need 193k now if marginal tax rate is 10%, 197k if marginal tax rate is 12% -> 750k (no taxes paid on the gains)
Mixed (you only need to 3k/year from roth to bring taxable income down to threshold):
169K into t401k + 19-20k into r401k (10 and 12% marginal tax rates) = 189k now.
Another easy case is when the current marginal tax is 0%. If you are putting money into retirement accounts when your income is under the standard deduction, then definitely Roth. Traditional literally does nothing in that case.
Of course this is a bit of a contrived example and it assumes you have the same 10-12% marginal tax rate on either side. I think most people who have the extra income to for it to be worth the time to consider the difference probably make enough now to be in higher brackets, but probably will retire with significantly lower spending than their current income. If taxes across brackets increase in the future, otoh, then paying them now would be beneficial and may give some peace of mind about that risk.
There's so many unknowns that I think its a bit oversimplistic to assume one is simply better than the other.
Nope I don't have any examples. You should invest as you see fit, after doing your own research into the options.
It's a gamble basically but I'm gambling that taxes will be higher than the little bit more I might make on gains from the extra pre-tax money.
That will depend on your total savings and such. If you start a 401k at 25 and contribute the max until you retire at 72: you will have a lot of money and it is likely the Roth is better just because because you have so much more taxes to pay. OTOH, if you wait until 45 to start savings and never contribute the max, when you retire at 62 you will do okay (most of your income is from SS - better hope it is still there!) but your total income will be small and so you end up in a lower tax bracket. Odds are you will be somewhere between those two extremes.
Roth and regular investment accounts often have the same annual contribution limits, but the Roth has effectively more growth just because you don't pay taxes: 100,000 in a regular account is worth $70,000 after taxes (exact number depends on your state and tax bracket - it might be $80,000 it might be $50,000), while in the Roth it is $100,000.
There is also the gamble. Nobody knows what tax rates and deductions will be in the future. If things stay the same I can tell you what will happen, but I consider the odds of that zero - but the odds that things are close to today I think are good enough - but I have no way of know. They might make a withdrawals from a Roth taxable (this would go to court, but who knows how the court will look in 30 years). They might change the tax brackets - either up or down. They might make regular retirement withdrawals non-taxable (or taxed at a different rate). They might confiscate all retirement funds in some revolution. Or you might die before you retire. Again I think the safe bet is tax rules will be somewhat close to todays rules, and you will live to the statistical average lifespan plus a couple years - but I do not know.
And if you make enough to contribute to both a RothIRA and a 401k, you should do that and not pick one over the other.
Traditional IRAs and Roth 401ks are also things.