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Here’s how much — or little — the typical American has in a 401(k)
Recent data on how much money people have tucked away in their 401(k) plans highlights just how far most Americans have to go to reach their retirement savings goals.
As of the third quarter, 401(k) participants whose plan was managed by Fidelity Investments had a median balance of $23,800, according to recent data from the wealth management firm. Savings were even slimmer for other types of retirement plan, with median savings of $20,600 for 403(b) accounts and $14,500 for individual retirement accounts.
One measure of how many people are likely to fall short: An August survey from brokerage firm Charles Schwab found that Americans say they need $1.8 million to retire comfortably.
Fidelity’s data, which is based on an analysis of the roughly 45 million retirement accounts it manages, also shows stark differences in account balances across different generations. Perhaps not surprisingly, given they’ve had longer to save, baby boomers lead all groups in money saved with an average of $212,600 saved in 401(k) accounts, $196,600 in 403(b) accounts and $201,640 in IRAs.
Yet many boomers are headed toward retirement without a penny saved, a Credit Karma survey found earlier this year. Likewise, millions of Generation-X Americans have only $40,000 in savings, according to a July report from the National Institute on Retirement Security.
One of the best ways to boost a 401(k) balance is to funnel pay raises from your employer into the retirement account, according to Kamila Elliott, a certified financial planner in Georgia. Elliott told CBS News earlier this month that Americans don’t make adjustments to their employer-sponsored retirement account as often as they should.
“They auto-enroll in the 401(k) plan, but they never increase their contribution as they make more money,” Elliott said.
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Sen. Mark Kelly says feds need to do a “better job” of letting Americans know “there’s a huge amount of misinformation” on election
Washington — Sen. Mark Kelly said Sunday that the federal government needs to do its part to inform Americans of the vast swath of election misinformation that’s being consumed on social media platforms like X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
“It’s up to us, the people who serve in Congress and in the White House to get the information out there, that there is a tremendous amount of misinformation in this election, and it’s not going to stop on Nov. 5,” Kelly said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Kelly, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he’s seen these misinformation operations target not only his state of Arizona, but also other battleground states.
“There is a very reasonable chance I would put it in the 20 to 30% range, that the content you are seeing, the comments you are seeing, are coming from one of those three countries: Russia, Iran, China,” Kelly said.
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In a committee hearing last month on foreign threats to the 2024 election, Kelly presented screenshots of Russian-made web pages showing fabricated headlines designed to look like Fox News and The Washington Post, targeted at voters in battleground states.
“So my constituents in Arizona and others — they seek to influence the outcome of these elections, and that is absolutely beyond the pale,” Kelly said at the Sept. 18 hearing. “We’ve got to do something about it.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump each have the support of 49% of Arizona voters, according to CBS News’ battleground tracker as of Sept. 30.
In another battleground state, Pennsylvania, Trump returned Saturday to hold a rally in Butler three months after an attempted assassination on him. He was joined by members of his own party and billionaire Elon Musk, who said Trump was the only way to preserve democracy and warned of a last election if he does not win in November.
Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Kelly called the social media mogul a hypocrite.
“He’s standing next to the guy that tried to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, saying that this is somehow going to be the last election and they’re going to take away your vote,” Kelly said. “And you know, it just doesn’t pass the logic test.”
At the White House press briefing on Friday, President Biden – speaking from the podium for the first time since taking office – said he’s confident of a free and fair election but alluded to the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol in his concerns on whether it will be a peaceful transfer of power.
“The things that Trump has said and the things that he said last time out when he didn’t like the outcome of the election were very dangerous,” Mr. Biden said. “If you notice, I noticed that the vice-presidential Republican candidate did not say he’d accept the outcome of the election, and they haven’t even accepted the outcome of the last election.”
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