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


  • Black Agenda Radio
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio April 12, 2024
    12 Apr 2024
    We revisit BAR’s 2017 analysis of the protection afforded Rwanda’s Paul Kagame by the human rights industrial complex and continue our discussion with BAR’s poet in residence about his upcoming…
  • Ecuador breaking into Mexican embassy
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Ecuador Kidnaps Former Vice President from Mexican Embassy
    12 Apr 2024
    Camila Escalante joins to discuss Ecuador’s intrusion into Mexico’s embassy in Quito and the arrest of Ecuador’s former Vice President who had been given asylum there.
  • Paul Kagame
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Human Rights Industrial Complex Protects Paul Kagame in Rwanda
    12 Apr 2024
    We revisit a discussion with Ann Garrison and the late Glen Ford about U.S. and human rights industrial complex support for Kagame in 2017.
  • Raymond Nat Turner
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Raymond Nat Turner, Upsurge NYC and Black Agenda Report - Part 2
    12 Apr 2024
    In the second part of a two-part interview, we speak with Raymond Nat Turner about his work and an upcoming performance with his group, Upsurge New York City, on April 13.
  • No NATO no war
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    UNAC Conference: Decolonization and the Fight Against Imperialism
    10 Apr 2024
    The recent 2024 United National Antiwar Coalition conference brought together an international group of activists from member organizations who mobilize against imperialism, racism, and neo-…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us