Posted on 12/10/2013 5:29:43 AM PST by reaganaut1
Fewer than half of blacks and Latino workers have retirement plans on the job, leaving the vast majority of them with no savings designated for their golden years, according to a report to be released Tuesday.
Americans of all races face the growing prospect of downward mobility in retirement, the report said, but the problem is particularly acute for blacks and Hispanics.
More often than not, blacks and Latinos benefit little from the tax breaks and other policy initiatives aimed at bolstering retirement security because they typically have no money to save for retirement in IRAs and other vehicles outside the workplace, according to Diane Oakley, executive director of the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS), which conducted the study. In addition, they are much less likely than whites to have defined-benefit pensions, particularly outside of public sector jobs.
“Those are startling findings,” Oakley said. “The typical household of color has nothing saved in a retirement account.”
The report highlights the retirement security problems looming for a nation grappling with serious debt even as an aging population is demanding more services from government.
A broad sweep of policy makers, including the Bowles-Simpson deficit reduction commission and President Obama, have endorsed trimming future Social Security benefit increases as a way of reining in the national debt.
Charles Blahous, research fellow with the Hoover Institution and one of the trustees appointed to oversee Social Security and Medicare, argued that Social Security has the perverse effect of discouraging cash-strapped people from making a priority of retirement savings.
“A true answer to the problem would mean decreasing our society’s dependence on income transfer programs as a source of retirement income, and increasing the net amount of saving that we do,” he said in an e-mail.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Get ready for 401(k) and IRA tax deductions to be singled out as tax breaks for rich white people.
They will be on medicaid to pay their nursing home costs.
Poor people have poor ways.
Another big problem is that the boomers were a prosperous bunch, but they are being replaced by a much less prosperous generation.
Dishwashers, burger flippers and gardeners are going to have a hard time supporting retiring boomers.
(And in Obama’s economy, many whites have no retirement savings as well...so why paint whites as the exception, oh MSM?)
It’s hard to win The War On Poverty when the government keeps bringing in millions of reenforcements for the other side.
You mean SNAP and food stamps doesn’t translate into IRAs? I’m shocked, I tell ya, shocked.
They usually die before that.
Get ready for the push to “socially justice” all IRAs.
There will be no retirement for the vast majority soon (especially if your ex gets 3/4 of yours in the divorce).
Work till you drop or die early.
Yes but they get a check every month. So long as they keep getting that check, someone will give them a bed in their house in exchange for that check.
“Meanwhile, a host of state and local governments have been cutting back on pension benefits for public employees, saying they cannot afford their long-term cost.
Such public employee pensions, which typically pay a fixed benefit for life, have been of particular help to African Americans, who make up a disproportionate share of government workers. Similarly, trimming retirement benefits will disproportionately hurt the retirement prospects of black workers, even as they struggle with lower housing values and homeownership rates than whites.”
So now the unions will argue that bankrupt Detroit cannot trim their pensions because it is racist.
They DO have retirement plans; make whitey pay.
Some truth would help all involved here. The statement begs three immediate questions. How many work in government, how many work in private employment and how many do not work? Since we know all the govt. workers have class A retirement opportunities lets take them out. Then figure out what the savings rates are of the the cohort with private sector employment. My bet is that folks that work save at the same rate as other folks that work regardless of ethnicity. Which leaves those that do not work. For them, what are they really retiring from ? How could they save at a comparable rate if they don’t work in the first place?
Why should they save? Whitey will share. He’s been doing it since LBJ days, and now that BHO is in charge of the government and immigration, he’ll have to do it some more.
They already are (majority of them, anyways).
The Cyprus bank takeover by government was just the start. Don’t think the lefties in this country didn’t take notice. They want to go after that pile of money called 401ks so badly. I guarantee before I start drawing on my retirement savings, they will be trying to get their hands on it.
Once upon a time, there was an ant and a grasshopper. The ant worked hard every day storing up food for the winter. The grasshopper played his fiddle and had a good time and did not store up food for the winter. Winter came. The grasshopper went to the government and said, “Give me some of the ant’s food.” The government took food from the ant by threatening to throw the ant into prison if he didn’t give them food for the grasshopper. This went on for several years, and there were more and more grasshoppers playing their fiddles in the summer and eating the ant’s food in the winter. Finally, the ant had no food left for himself and starved to death in the winter. The moral of the story is: Screw the Democrats. Let them eat grasshoppers.
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