Word: number
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...average 401(k) has a balance of $45,519. That's not retirement. That's two years of college. Even worse, 46% of all 401(k) accounts have less than $10,000. Today, just 21% of all U.S. workers are covered by traditional pensions, and the number shrinks every year. "The time may have come to consider returning 401(k) plans to their original position as a third tier of retirement planning, behind pensions and Social Security," says Alicia Munnell, who heads the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. "They should not be the thing we rely...
...these accounts amount to much? Munnell found a number of reasons. Some people don't contribute as much as they should - essentially ignoring free money from company matches and tax relief. And, as the original engineers of the 401(k) suspected, the less you earn, the less you are likely or able to contribute. For most employees, the maximum contribution to a 401(k) is $16,000 annually. She found that just 5% of people earning $80,000 to $100,000 maxed out, compared with 30% of those making $100,000 or more...
...Companies would establish default settings to boost returns and make the portfolios safer as workers near retirement. People who worked for companies that didn't offer 401(k)s would be automatically enrolled in savings accounts. In other words, make inertia work for employees, not against them. However, a number of economists and policy experts think that while those changes would help, upgrading the 401(k) alone won't save the nation's retirement-savings problem. (See pictures of the recession...
That was music to the ears of many Tories, straight and gay, who have been trying for years to modernize their party. In 2000 Christina Dykes launched Absolutely Equal, a conference event that ran for a number of years and was supported by several minority-rights organizations, in an attempt to broaden her colleagues' focus. "After the bad defeats in 1997 and 2001, the party closed in on itself," she says. "We were just talking to ourselves." Matthew Parris, now a prominent writer and broadcaster, served as a Tory Parliament member during the Thatcher era and remembers when organizers...
...particularly sweet foreign policy triumph for Assad, who became persona non grata after many in the international community accused Syria of involvement in the 2005 car-bomb assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in Beirut. In the past year, however, the Syrian leader has hosted a growing number of heads of state and world leaders, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and U.S. Middle East envoy George Mitchell, who have sought Syria's cooperation in settling many of the region's seemingly intractable disputes. (See pictures of President Obama's visit to Saudi Arabia...