Retirement? Bah! Let’s Spend it Now
Americans may be taking their #YOLO lifestyle a bit too far. You do only live once, after all, but most people also only get one shot at retirement.
More than a third of Americans say that they’re not saving for tomorrow because they are unwilling to sacrifice their quality of life today and would rather spend their money on things like dinners and vacations, according to a new study by Charles Schwab.
Maintaining their current lifestyle was the number one reason that people aren’t saving for retirement, followed by unexpected expenses (31 percent), covering monthly bills (31 percent), and paying off credit card debt (24 percent).
Even if they’re not prioritizing saving for retirement, they do want to work for a company that offers a retirement plan. Nine in 10 of those surveyed said that they would think twice about taking a job if the company did not offer a 401(k) plan, and 80 percent said they wouldn’t be confident in their ability to save for retirement without a 401(k) plan.
Related: Here are 7 Ways People Screw Up Their 401(k)s
Those who do have 401(k) plans said they don’t feel they’re getting enough guidance. Nearly half of those surveyed said that the materials explaining investment options are more confusing than those explaining health and medical benefits.
More than two-thirds of employees said that they want personalized investment counseling, but only 12 percent are currently getting professional advice. About half of those surveyed said that they would expect better performance if they used professional advice.
Nearly three-quarters of people said they’d rather have their 401(k) balance grow by 15 percent this year than lose 15 pounds. Maybe if they stopped eating dinners out, they could have both.
Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
- The Worst States for Retirement in 2015
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- The 10 States with the Worst Roads
Chart of the Day: Boosting Corporate Tax Revenues
The leading candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination have all proposed increasing taxes on corporations, including raising income tax rates to levels ranging from 25% to 35%, up from the current 21% imposed by the Republican tax cuts in 2017. With Bernie Sanders leading the way at $3.9 trillion, here’s how much revenue the higher proposed corporate taxes, along with additional proposed surtaxes and reduced tax breaks, would generate over a decade, according to calculations by the right-leaning Tax Foundation, highlighted Wednesday by Bloomberg News.
Chart of the Day: Discretionary Spending Droops
The federal government’s total non-defense discretionary spending – which covers everything from education and national parks to veterans’ medical care and low-income housing assistance – equals 3.2% of GDP in 2020, near historic lows going back to 1962, according to an analysis this week from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Chart of the Week: Trump Adds $4.7 Trillion in Debt
The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated this week that President Trump has now signed legislation that will add a total of $4.7 trillion to the national debt between 2017 and 2029. Tax cuts and spending increases account for similar portions of the projected increase, though if the individual tax cuts in the 2017 Republican overhaul are extended beyond their current expiration date at the end of 2025, they would add another $1 trillion in debt through 2029.
Chart of the Day: The Long Decline in Interest Rates
Are interest rates destined to move higher, increasing the cost of private and public debt? While many experts believe that higher rates are all but inevitable, historian Paul Schmelzing argues that today’s low-interest environment is consistent with a long-term trend stretching back 600 years.
The chart “shows a clear historical downtrend, with rates falling about 1% every 60 years to near zero today,” says Bloomberg’s Aaron Brown. “Rates do tend to revert to a mean, but that mean seems to be declining.”
Chart of the Day: Drug Price Plans Compared
Lawmakers are considering three separate bills that are intended to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. Here’s an overview of the proposals, from a series of charts produced by the Kaiser Family Foundation this week. An interesting detail highlighted in another chart: 88% of voters – including 92% of Democrats and 85% of Republicans – want to give the government the power to negotiate prices with drug companies.
