Your 401(k) Is Only A Drop In The Bucket

Few employees save more than 3 percent of their salary in a 401(k). Fewer employers even provide a 401(k). Nowadays, how does anyone save enough money to retire when incomes are dropping and older workers can’t find jobs?

I got a surprise gift on my birthday last year: a notice that I had been laid off. (Ironically, the layoff notice arrived the same day I received a “Notice of Appreciation” for my past 10 years of service; “Please accept any gift on the enclosed brochure to show our gratitude.” It was an eventful day.

Several hundred of my fellow employees received similar gifts last year, not because they had outgrown their usefulness, but because of a necessary “reduction in force.” It was necessary, of course, for the good of the stockholders and company executives, who were forced to endure only small increases in their wages for the year.

Luckily, I am still working, making several million dollars a year writing this blog. (Oh, a little exaggeration isn’t going to hurt anybody.)

“How are you doing?” my friends ask. “Well, every day’s a Saturday,” I always say. Still, I’m doing better than many people who can't find a job regardless of their age and talents. My son and his wife just graduated college. He has a degree in business; she has an advanced degree in biology. Both have college loan debt they’ll be repaying for decades. Both are working, but neither has a job in his or her field of study.

Who is ever ready for retirement? Even 50 years ago, only a minority of folks retired with enough money for food, housing, utilities, transportation, and presents for their children’s children at Christmas. Today, a job in which any worker (skilled, healthy or otherwise) can work continuously for 30 years and then retire is practically non-existent.

Ours is a capitalist economy that rewards successful entrepreneurs and values cheap labor. So, you must own your own business, become a doctor or a lawyer… or work for whatever salary the man will pay you. With few exceptions, only professionals, business owners, political lobbyists and heads of corporations can one day afford to retire.

Don’t count on government programs like Social Security to protect you from a perilous future. If you are a worker bee, make as much honey as you can, take care of your queen, and watch out for the WASPS!

Jac Flanders is the author of “What I Learned On The Way Down” - eBook and paperback at Amazon.com.