Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Those Ever-Shrinking 401Ks and the Theft of Retirement Security
21 Dec 2011
🖨️ Print Article

For most of the 20th century, until the 1980s, each generation of retirees had a somewhat higher standard of living than the last.  With the Reagan era advent of federal policies encouraging private employers to raid and discontinue defined benefit pensions, that trend stopped.  The current generation of retirees are discovering that their 401Ks are almost never sufficient to allow a dignified retirement.  They've been robbed.  401Ks are subject to the stock market, which favors insiders, and financial managers and the retirement-industrial complex extract as much as a quarter of all 401K savings in parasitic fees.  In this Against the Grain interview James Russell explains why Wall Street loves privatized and individual retirement accounts, and hates defined beneift pensions and social security,



Your browser does not support the audio element.

listen
http://www.againstthegrain.org/files/files/atg/atg_2014.11.12_401ks.mp3

More Stories


  • Israel bombs mosque in the West Bank
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Israel's West Bank Invasion
    13 Sep 2024
    Rawan Masri of Decolonize Palestine joins us to talk about events in Palestine, on the West Bank, where the IDF sent troops into the occupied territory and engaged in mass arrests, shootings, and…
  • The Soviet Union
    Bruce A. Dixon , BAR managing editor
    US Fake World War 2 History Underlies Permanent Bipartisan Hostility Toward Russia
    11 Sep 2024
    Black Agenda Report revisits this commentary from the late Bruce Dixon.
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Harris and Trump Debate Maintenance of the Status Quo
    11 Sep 2024
    The debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump featured a rehash of neo-liberal and imperialist talking points. Both are committed to disastrous policies domestically and internationally.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    STATEMENT: Paul Robeson Before the House Un-American Activities Committee, June 12, 1956
    11 Sep 2024
    Revisiting Paul Robeson’s prepared statement to the House Un-American Activities Committee–during a new era of repression.
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    TAKEOVER! A Human Rights Approach to Housing
    11 Sep 2024
    TAKEOVER! A Human Rights Approach to Housing is a beautifully written book about poor and homeless people choosing to live and refusing to die.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us