Agreed, but point being that everything is getting expensive globally. 40 years ago, everyone was buying a house in their 20's. Nowadays, you'd be lucky if someone in their 30's can afford to buy a small apartment.
It's because we have to spend so much money on things that previous generations never had - we have access to everything... internet, TV, technology, computers, software, video on demand, consoles, gadgets, phones, apps, modern transport, advanced healthcare, insurance, policies, education... everything is convenient and takes our money on a monthly basis. And what we subscribe to is all disposable. It continuously needs to be updated or replaced. Everything these days has a cost and an expiry date associated to it. Typewriters lasted decades. A laptop maybe a few years at best.
We live in a complex expensive world that never existed in the boomer generation - so their money and expenditure was more focused on the core function of their future. Modern society dictates that the future is "now", so you need to keep up with the now. In the 1980's your telephone lasted you 20 years. Now it gets replaced every 2 years on average. There is a financial drain on modern comfortable living.
Agree and disagree, big issue is that many more job with higher skills, so causes an imbalance between have and have nots, as long as min gets enough all is good, but it hasn't happened, rather more jobs that require skills were created but that only works as long as boom.
You also have women join the work force, so two people earning income instead of one, so easier to afford capital for a house, over time housing prices caught up to two people earning, now you are basically forced to work.
That article that you linked has weird comments like:
"And because we have a progressive tax system, which means you tax people at the top more than people in the middle and the bottom, then basically we have really generous subsidies for saving for retirement for rich people. But nothing at all really for people, especially the bottom half of the income distribution, to pay almost no income tax. And so really, it's the people at the bottom that are most urgently in need of help saving. And it's the people at the top who get the benefit of all the policies that currently exist.”
That's a weird one, since income tax is quite a bit lower in lower brackets, that means you shouldn't "need" the benefits, your effective tax rate should be lower either way.
And extending on 401k, you have issues like 1-3% fees in a country where interest rates aren't that high, you don't have options like real estate, then all the rules that the employer can use when they lay you off:
https://www.cpajournal.com/2020/06/23/401k-plan-issues-in-the-current-environment/ etc.
Tbh the missing middle is what I am worried about the most, people living previous style but 401k even though correctly done will not be enough due to fees, unforseen circumstances etc. as all based on when you take the money out, all the people that went into pension with covid and cashed out during beginning of pandemic for example.
The other thing, is that at the lower end of the spectrum, I would not use 401k as can't move money around etc., and doubt most of them would be using it. Would be a bad idea due to fees.
Same as South Africa pension tbh, personally don't think it's good for anything below 20%.
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