WAS THE 401k A BIG MISTAKE?

There’s a perpetual pundit debate over the best way to provide for retirement: defined benefit plans (pensions), defined contribution plans (401(k)s, IRAs and the like) or pay-as-you-go social insurance schemes (Social Security). Most retirement experts I’ve talked to prefer a mix of these, a “three-legged stool.” But as I’ve written before, this is a bit like arguing whether the Titanic would have survived the iceberg if only its hull had been painted green. All three types of retirement savings have different costs and benefits. But these costs and benefits are not the primary reason that people in Western countries have to worry about an impoverished old age.

The funny thing is that, for all the people arguing that some dire problem in one of these three retirement systems urgently requires that we switch to another kind at once, the major problem with all three is exactly the same. It’s even a problem that’s easy to state and easy to fix — no need for extensive blue-ribbon commissions or elaborate white papers. Here’s the solution: Pick whichever system you prefer; it really doesn’t matter. Now slap a 10 to 15 percent surcharge on a worker’s wage income, and divert that money into the system for the worker’s future use. Problem basically solved, because in all three cases, the only flaw that actually matters is that they’re badly underfunded.

If you expect to spend 40 years of your life working, and then another 20 or 30 years living off the money you made during that time, then you need to save a large portion of your salary. Imagine yourself storing up food for the last 30 years of your life from the harvests made during the first 40. You might hope that when you’re older, and no longer toiling in the fields, you won’t need to eat so much. Nonetheless, you’d understand that you would need to put aside a considerable portion of your harvest — something close to what you’re eating each day — to ensure that you don’t starve to death in your old age.

Saving for retirement requires considerable sacrifice in the present. Investing for retirement allows you to convince yourself that impressive returns will make present sacrifice unnecessary. Individuals, companies, and governments are all prey to this self-delusion.

Plus: “The 401(k) was not the miracle cure for our retirement problems that was promised by some of its more zealous advocates. But it wasn’t a mistake, either, or at least not the important one. The important mistake was deciding that we could spend our first 25 years in school, and our last 25 years in retirement, without cutting our consumption in between. And, at least to date, that’s one mistake we don’t seem to be able to learn from.”