The U.S. retirement savings crisis is not on the horizon — it’s already here, and the middle class is going to be decimated by it. The erosion of incomes in America is ultimately going to deteriorate the quality of life of millions of middle-class workers when they reach retirement age, and according to a new study, almost half of them are at risk of falling into or below the poverty line. Over the course of many decades, middle-class Americans have been induced to believe that our current retirement system can provide the security and stability they need when they reach their golden years, but that can’t be farther from the truth. Just like food and housing, retirement is a necessity. Eventually, we’re all going to get to the point where we can’t work anymore, and society tells us that it is our duty to make arrangements for when that happens because, at some point, we will no longer be able to earn an income. However, the cost of retirement has risen exponentially, and middle-class Americans are going to be disproportionally impacted by this looming crisis. A new report released by Economic Policy Research found that the percentage of pay middle-income earners have to save to finance an adequate retirement has ballooned over the past two decades. Research shows 31% of middle-income Americans are reportedly saving money for their future, of those only 9% of middle-income workers save 15% or more of their income for retirement, according to Pew Research Center data. At the same time, 42% are not currently saving for retirement. Meanwhile, 27% of middle-class workers have empty nest eggs. No wonder why a quarter of them expect to never retire, according to the Cuna Mutual Group 2022 Middle-Class Survey. Against this background, a recent study by the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the New School has uncovered that nearly half of middle-class Americans will face a slide into poverty as they enter their retirement. The paper exposed that roughly 40% of Americans who are considered middle-class will fall into poverty by the time they reach age 65, while an additional 8% are likely to fall below the poverty line. Our society makes us believe that only through financial discipline and individual effort we will be able to enjoy our senior years without major concerns. But the retirement crisis in America is less due to personal failure than structural failures. At the end of the day, savings are not the root of the problem with our retirement system. The main problem is that our wages have been steadily dropping for decades. Corporations have been largely hoarding profits, giving CEOs generous bonuses, and barely readjusting what they pay to their employees so that their salaries can keep pace with inflation. While corporate executives have seen their pay skyrocket by 876% in the past forty years, our salaries have increased by just 41% over that same span. Government policies and the underfunding of Social Security are a clear demonstration that authorities aren’t taking care of people’s interests. Instead, they’re making life harder for many of us. The mere mention of the idea that corporations should be held responsible for the impact they have on the lives of the 99% can make the elites hysterically complain that this is an attack on “wealth creators.” But what does that make the rest of us? If only we could impose the same kind of financial discipline on corporate executives and government leaders as we do on the middle class, then we would have a real answer to the retirement problem.
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