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


  • US Joins Past Empires In Afghan Graveyard
    Medea Benjamin, Nicolas J.S. Davies
    US Joins Past Empires In Afghan Graveyard
    21 Apr 2021
    President Biden announced a removal of all U.S. troops by September 11, but he failed to include some important details.
  • A History of Unemployment and the Search for Solutions
    Philip Harvey
    A History of Unemployment and the Search for Solutions
    21 Apr 2021
    The only time the United States has experienced real full employment was during World Wars I and II.
  • Study Indicates the Capitol Riots were Motivated by Racism and White Resentment, not 'Election Theft'
    Dartagnan
    Study Indicates the Capitol Riots were Motivated by Racism and White Resentment, not 'Election Theft'
    21 Apr 2021
    A consistent majority of the insurrectionists lived in counties that had rapidly diversified in recent years.
  • Black Worker Centers: Building Workplace Power in the Communities
    Matthew Cunnington-Cook
    Black Worker Centers: Building Workplace Power in the Communities
    21 Apr 2021
    As organized labor deals with the defeat at Amazon in Alabama, another type of base-building power beckons.
  • Bessemer Amazon Union Drive: An Interview with the Lead Organizer
    Luis Feliz Leon and Joshua Brewer
    Bessemer Amazon Union Drive: An Interview with the Lead Organizer
    21 Apr 2021
    “We feel like we got a heck of a start, and we’re proud of it, and we’re proud of the workers that are willing to continue that fight.”
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us