Enough said
Personal finances, Health Care-Social Security-Retirement Planning and Related Public Policy Issues
Personal finances, Health Care-Social Security-Retirement Planning and Related Public Policy Issues
Asking The Wrong Questions On Retirement Saving
“Should Americans save more for retirement? The answer isn’t nearly as clear-cut as the conventional wisdom might lead you to think.”
” The short answer, whether you ask financial planners helping their clients or economists studying the whole population, is that people prefer a steady standard of living to a cycle of feast and famine. Saving might reduce our standard of living during our working years, but it allows us to live much better in retirement.”
“Let’s start with low-income Americans, the working poor who struggle to stay out of poverty. They don’t save much for retirement, and conventional wisdom says that public policy should be aimed at getting them to save more.”
“If you’re a near-poverty level worker, does it make sense to reduce your standard of living even further in order to boost your income in retirement, when your risk of poverty is already significantly lower? I don’t know of any economic or financial planning rule that says they should.”
Andrew Biggs
Forbes, Nov 5, 2020,
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Not sure of the point you make. Everyone except perhaps those in or very close to poverty should save something and can do so by examining non necessity spending.
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Not trying to be difficult here, but “in or very close to poverty” is at least 1 out of 10 people, May be 1 out of seven in the U.S.. None of those may be your followers, but your readers should be aware.
And in many/most cases, it is through no fault of their own. It’s math. It’s demographics. It is inevitable.
Because some people were never poor, or managed to rise from poverty, does not mean that those still in poverty are in any way deficient. Contrary to “should save something”, a lot of Americans are ” negative saving”, going deeper into debt every year. Can’t tell you how many; Bloomberg just told me I’ve used my quota of free articles.
Seriously, when living paycheck to paycheck, there is no such thing as non necessity spending.
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Please be aware that many
perceived reputable sources of information are manipulated to fit a political agenda…i.e. fake news.
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I disagree. Living paycheck to paycheck can occur at any level of income. Being in poverty is not those I refer. For most Americans the problem is not just lack of income, but spending as well. Do you believe there is an excuse for the many Americans who claim they don’t have $400? For most there isn’t. The lowest income groups of Americans (not the poverty level) spend the largest percentage of income on lotteries.
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Lack of savings is a symptom of another problem…you can’t fix lazy.
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