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-Google '401k calculator' and take your pick of the top 10 results.
-Then plug in:
$15,000 annual salary (full time minimum wage with 2 weeks unpaid vacation = 2000hrs x $7.25)
5% contribution (works out to about 15 dollars a week)
75% employer match
Starting age = 16
Starting value = $0
Retirement age = 65
Annual rate of return = 5%
Expected annual salary increase = 1%
The amount in this hypothetical account at age 65 will be over $300,000. Play with the numbers a little - it is enlightening.
Compound interest is a powerful thing, but of course you need some discipline too. So in response to your post - Saving $15 per week is not unreasonable, and I think a minimum wage employee should definitely be able to contribute to a 401K.
75% match, where are you getting that?
5% rate of return, hah.
Where do rent, health insurance and food come into your calculation.
With fantasy scenarios it might work.
In reality, unlikely.
You should have pride for doing what you need to do to get by. You should carry shame for wasting your life and your education. How one can work all week for $300 and be cool with it is beyond me.
I made more then you make when I was 15 and I still wasnt cool with it , I wanted more.
And you get to determine what is "wasting" someone's life?
You're not the arbiter of such things.
Especially of determining shame for others.
Might want to pay attention to your life.
You made more than $12k when you were 15?
Sure you did.
Truth be known, I wouldn't mind having a cigarette on an airplane. I wouldn't mind doing a tab of acid every now and then. I wouldn't mind having a few beers, perhaps being slightly over the legal limit, but by no means being sloppy fall down drunk. I wouldn't mind smoking a joint with a cop, which was occuring at the Woodstock Festival. But you know why I don't indulge in any of the these activities? The penalties are way to high, the consequences to great....something your generation didn't have to worry about. You and your peers had more freedom.
I have friends who went to jail for a decade for small amounts of pot, so don't play those silly games with me.
Life was not a festival.
They also beat the crap out of us and murdered students at Jackson State and Kent.
Ever hear of Chicago.
You're welcome to drink; you're welcome to do acid, no one would probably bother you now.
So no one is taking your rights away, you don't want to pay penalties so you don't do what you want.
Finally, these items have nothing to do with your initial whine about people not having retirement funds taking your freedoms.
The 75% of Americans with $30,000 saved up for retirement when they get to the point that they "retire" actually have:
$500,000 available although saved up in different forms
Example
$30,000 saved up
Assuming the average person lives 12 years after retirement with $30,000 saved up.
$43,200 over the course of 12 years with food stamps at $300 a month
$216,000 with Social Security for 12 years at $1,500 a month (average)
$210,800 medical expenses covered by Medicare over the course of 12 years of retirment
That is $500,000
If it were only that easy.
Retirees are stuck in their homes frequently due to the relative inexpensive cost of living.
There is still overhead and taxes.
If you get food stamps or other public support, they'll lien your property.
So you don't get food stamps.
There's a medicare supplement that people are required to pay and every SS increase is consumed by that.
75% match, where are you getting that?
5% rate of return, hah.
Where do rent, health insurance and food come into your calculation.
With fantasy scenarios it might work.
In reality, unlikely.
Also all of you who think a retirement stock portfolio is a panacea are living in a dream world. This year so far the stock market has done nothing. Your assets have stayed the same. However when you factor in inflation you've lost 20% of the purchasing power. You'd have been better off spending all your money on clothes and groceries and stuff you'll need to buy and will have to pay twice as much for if we have four more years of Obama or four years of Romney with no changes at the Federal Reserve. At least if you stock piled stuff like that you wouldn't have to buy them in the future paying a hnigher price with dollars worth a lot less. GET IT? No financial advisor is going to tell you this. They hardly understand Austrian Economics.
1. With all due respect, my portfolio is very conservative (25% large cap stocks, 20% real estate index, 25% inflation-linked bonds, 20% high-yield fixed-earnings mix, and the balance in guaranteed money market), and I've earned better than six percent already this year, with five months to go. And this has been a terrible year for the stock market!
2. I don't know what the inflation rate is, but it's sure not six percent. Last time I checked, it was less than 2 per cent:
3. I admit I'm not sure what Austrian economics means, but as long as I'm able to draw my standard five per cent per year from my nest egg, I'm villing doo dalk like Ahnold.
I admit I'm not sure what Austrian economics means,
To hugely oversimplify, Austrian economics is not buying if you don't have the (real, gold/silver etc. backed) money, save whatever you don't need to spend, live within your means (spend less than your income), thus accumulating wealth. Another school of thinking, Keynesian economics, is borrowing money (actually conterfeit it) to loan to people (encourage borrowing) to spend to generate economic activity.
Awaiting well justified criticism of my absurdly simplified explanation.
To hugely oversimplify, Austrian economics is not buying if you don't have the (real, gold/silver etc. backed) money, save whatever you don't need to spend, live within your means (spend less than your income), thus accumulating wealth. Another school of thinking, Keynesian economics, is borrowing money (actually conterfeit it) to loan to people (encourage borrowing) to spend to generate economic activity.
Awaiting well justified criticism of my absurdly simplified explanation.
Thanks for the info. I must admit I love Strauss, but I never knew I was Austrian until now.
No cons are taking social security?
The only time boomers were gloating on this board was in response to the idiotic comments hurled against them.
BTW, they paid into SS.
Do you really think that we have that much control over what the government does?
If so, you're kidding yourself.
Quit trying to blame any generation for the problems of society, it's divisive and absurd.
We were, as are all generations, sold a bill of goods.
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If only...
