Having said that, i don’t believe retirement is all it is cracked to be. I personally can’t understand why people would want quit being productive the last 10 to 30 or more years of their life.

I do agree that ERISA accounts are not good investment vehicles and should be avoided. Regardless, I’m not sure I entirely follow the logic from the Time article that you quoted above.

Are the statistics provided by the Time article relating to a specific group of 401s that were followed during the 10 year period, or did they pull two separate samples and calculate an average? In addition, what is the standard deviation of the samples? If the average today is $45,519 with a standard deviation of $15,000, that tells me that there is a lot of people who have significantly more and less than that average, however, if the standard deviation is $2,500, then that is a true average where most people seem to be sitting.

Continuing on that same line of questioning, there are more people employing 401s in 2008 than there were in 1998. The difference in balances could be the simple effect of younger individuals in Gen X and Gen Y who are only now starting their savings and have $10,000 in their 401s, while the baby boomers are sitting around with $150,000.

“2. “Forty-four percent of all Americans are in danger of going broke in their post-work years.””

I have heard this probablility for several years now, but this cannot be blamed on ERISA. The 401(K) hasn’t helped, but people are going bankrupt because they are 65 and still have 22 years to go on their mortgages, they are 65 and have over $15,000 in credit card debt, they are 65 and have car payments. They go bankrupt because the “point” of the ERISA accounts didn’t happen. The point, or idea, behind the ERISA accounts was that the person would have all their bills paid for by the time they retire and then would have the money flowing from the ERISA accounts to then support their lifestyle. The working person might require $50,000 per year in overhead to cover credit card debt, mortgage payments, car payments, etc., but should only need $15,000 when they retire because all of those variable expenses have been retired and they now only have the fixed expenses. But, most baby boomers haven’t done that. Most are about to retire and financially look like they are in their mid-thirties. Thus, they go bankrupt because their expenses exceed their revenues. That can’t be blamed on 401s. As stated, I don’t believe the 401 helps, but this phenomenon cannot be blamed on ERISA.