The Fallacy of the 401(k)

By Marie Cocco, Washington Post Writers Group
Posted on October 14, 2008, Printed on October 14, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/102775/

WASHINGTON -- The essential fallacy of the 401(k) has been exposed. It took a historic market collapse -- one that threatens to impoverish workers already in retirement and those who are nearing it. But then, crushing hardship is often what's required to usher out an era of ideological illogic and unconscionable greed.

The advent of the 401(k) in the late 1970s and early 1980s was a leading indicator of what became a political mania for shifting the risk and responsibility for life's big challenges -- health care, an adequate income in retirement -- from employers and other broad-shouldered institutions to the narrower, weaker backs of individuals themselves.