Why the 401(k) Has Become a Rainy Day Fund

单集文稿 ...

• 00:02

  Here's your money briefing for Thursday, March 13th.

• 00:06

  I'm Julia Carpenter for the Wall Street Journal.

• 00:13

  More 401K account holders are taking hardship withdrawals from their retirement savings to help handle financial emergencies.

• 00:20

  More and more employers are automatically enrolling their entire workforce into 401Ks.

• 00:26

  You're not only getting the higher earners who can easily afford to save.

• 00:32

  You're getting a lot of people who maybe can't actually afford to save.

• 00:37

  We'll talk to Wall Street Journal reporter Ann Tergason about the issues affecting this uptick and withdrawals after the break.

• 01:04

  Financial emergencies are causing more Americans to break into their 401K accounts.

• 01:09

  Wall Street Journal reporter Ann Tergason joins me to talk more.

• 01:13

  Okay, and it seems like Americans are facing a pretty complicated economic picture.

• 01:18

  Unemployment is low and workers earnings are on the rise again, but at the same time,

• 01:23

  people are falling behind on credit card and auto loan payments,

• 01:27

  and grocery prices remain a huge stressor for American families.

• 01:32

  How does that 401K withdrawal uptick that you reported on figure into this picture?

• 01:37

  So the uptick that I wrote about is about hardship distributions,

• 01:42

  which are taken for reasons like preventing foreclosure, paying medical bills, paying for primary home purchases.

• 01:52

  So a variety of reasons, some of which are truly quite financially pressing,

• 01:57

  like something like foreclosure or eviction, others of which are more discretionary.

• 02:03

  Is it easier now and to tap into this account than it has been in the past?

• 02:09

  It actually is, and that's because of Congress, which over the past several years,

• 全部文稿