When you hear corporate bashing, scorning a focus on rising stock prices or CEOs, consider the following:
Twenty-two percent of private sector workers (14% of non-union workers) and 92% of government workers (22 million Americans) have a traditional pension.
About 89 million Americans have a 401(k) plan. Twenty-million Americans have an IRA.
“Mutual fund assets held in retirement accounts (IRAs and DC plan accounts, including 401(k) plans) stood at $8.0 trillion as of the end of March 2017, or 47 percent of overall mutual fund assets. Fund assets in 401(k) plans stood at $3.2 trillion, or 19 percent of total mutual fund assets as of March 31, 2017. Retirement savings accounts held about half of long-term mutual fund assets industrywide but a much smaller share of money market fund assets industrywide (14 percent).” Source: ICI.org
Interesting note: Americans with a 401k account have more assets set aside than is in the Social Security Trust Fund on which most Americans depend or will depend.
About 54% of all adult Americans are invested in the stock market down from 64% before the recession (not including those with just pensions).
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