re: The typical U.S. worker has $955 saved for retirement, report finds

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Wait until that democracy hits and the sheep vote to take that money.

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The billionaire wealth tax is just the camel's nose in the tent...

As someone who has been retired for about a decade, my advice to anyone is you better start saving when you start working. I did that with one investment that cost me $33/month from 1985-2024. That was a life insurance policy that paid me $65K in 2024 when I turned 65. I started that the first year I got out of college. Started it thru a frat brother who moved to Dallas a couple of years before I did. My company didn't have 401k's until my 15th year on the job there. As soon as the 401K was available, I put as much as I could into that for the next 10 years

In October of 2010, when I was 51 years-old, I had a blood clot that caused compartment syndrome in my left leg. They did a fasciotomy on it to save my life, but there was nerve and vascular damage to the leg that can't be fixed. I was on life support for six weeks and had to do dialysis when my kidneys quit functioning. Besides the fasciotomy I had 10 follow up procedures before getting out of the hospital. My kidneys started back working, but my health was kind of ruined. I had great health insurance, but owed the hospital a little over $9K when I went home.

I haven't worked since 2010. I kept my money in the 401K and kept up the life insurance thru 2024. I paid the $9K over about six months after I started receiving disability insurance during the first year and a half of being away from work. I started getting my Social Security retirement money about 20 months after getting out of the hospital. It's the same as what I would get from retirement. I did get a lump sum payment for the 20 months I went without it, but I had to pay back the $11K I got from the disability insurance.

I didn't think I was going to have enough money to live on, but I do. Now that I've reached 65, I reinvested both the $65K from the insurance and $100K of the 401K in an annuity that's done well the first year. I'm basically here in Ruston, living off my Social Security. I couldn't do that in Dallas.

I wish the company I started working for in 1984 had offered the 401K from the beginning. That would have been 15 more years of contributions from both me and the company. I also wish I'd done the life insurance for more money.

Health issues are a major concern for all of us. Thanks for sharing your story

Averaging the entire 21-65 year old age group dilutes the whole thing. They really ought to look at a very specific age and measure that.

Rerun the whole study with solely 45 year olds who don’t have another source of retirement income (I.e a Federal or state pension). There’s no reason to average a bunch of college juniors a military E-4’s just barely old enough to drink into a retirement savings study.

Talk about be pissed if I was forced to contribute to Social Security my entire life only for it to go bankrupt right before retirement. I have a really good 401k but that’s not the point.

What’s happens to all the money the government forced me to contribute?

More than that by a decent amount

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They are the ones who will become the "you need to pay your fair share" people

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Don’t think I won’t give up my citizenship if they start pulling some crazy stunts.

No to say their isn’t a problem with most people with a lack of retirement savings, but taking the median of 21 to 64, the 21 year olds still in college or just starting in the corporate world will skew those median numbers. Need to look at age groups and savings. Which is low but not as low as the article insinuates.

A person should save.

A person also should not wait until he is 65 to finally start doing things he wants to do because he wouldn’t spend any money when he was younger.