Working Americans Have Almost No Retirement Savings
CNN Money reported last week that 43% of Americans have less than $10,000 in retirement savings, which is a statistic provided by the Employee Benefit Research Institute in their Retirement Confidence Survey (2010 results). If that figure isn’t scary enough, it appears that 27% of workers have less than $1,000. Both figures are increases from 2009, when 39% had less than $10,000 and 20% had less than $1,000 a year ago.
While the statistics are sobering, it does show how much the recession has hurt a lot of people. If you lose your job, the first thing to go after your emergency fund is probably going to be your retirement savings. Keeping a roof over your head and food in your stomach is going to take precedence over retirement tomorrow.
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One of the biggest challenges in almost anything you do is knowing where your blind spots are. In simpler terms, you don’t know what you don’t know. 
Yesterday, my wife quit her job of nearly four years in the middle of the worst economic recession in many many decades.
My wife has a 401(k) with T. Rowe Price from when she used to work at L’Oreal. She never rolled it over before the economic crisis because it wasn’t a priority and there was never a huge incentive to move. The expense ratios were reasonable, there was no annual fee, and it was more important for her to focus on moving, finding a new job, and devoting her time towards that and not rolling over a 401(k), which she could do anytime.
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