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

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


  • Briahna Joy Gray
    Why Did MSNBC Cancel Joy Reid?
    12 Mar 2025
    Some speculated that racism explains the firing of the liberal anchor. But MSNBC doesn't have a problem with Black hosts. They have a problem with pro-Palestine ones.
  • Sharon Zhang
    Israel Wiped Out at Least 1,200 Entire Families in Gaza, Analysis Finds
    12 Mar 2025
    The horrible toll of Israel's genocide in Gaza is still being revealed. There are also at least 3,400 families with only one surviving member, Palestinian officials have said.
  • Working Families Party
    David K. Cobb
    The Working Families Party and Fusion Voting: A Historical and Political Analysis
    12 Mar 2025
    The Working Families Party presents itself as a political party that works for the interest of working class people. However, the party behaves more like a sheepdog for the Democratic party.
  • Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio March 7, 2025
    07 Mar 2025
    In this week’s segment we discuss the continued genocide in Gaza despite the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
  • Rikers Island
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Rikers Island, Slave Catching, and the Modern Carceral State
    07 Mar 2025
    Darren Mack is co-founder and co-director of Freedom Agenda, an organization devoted to decarceration and system transformation, including
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us