New York Post columnist John Crudele bluntly states that “the U.S. economy isn’t only weak — it is broken. And new tools are needed to fix it.”
He said there really is only one option: “If Washington wants to get the economy moving, it needs to do what I’ve been proposing for a long time: Change the rules on retirement accounts so those who want to can spend some of that prosperity — perhaps by investing in real estate. That could energize the economy,”
he wrote.
“Stock gains aren’t liquid. And those gains are especially illiquid when they are buried in retirement accounts,” he wrote.
“The only prosperity today is coming from the stock market. And that prosperity may make people feel better, but it isn’t helping the economy, because it’s virtually untouchable,” he wrote.
“What’s happening is not very pretty. The US economy is broken and, if we continue down this road, the US will experience subpar growth until, well, forever,” he wrote.
He said his proposed retirement-rule changes don’t have to be permanent. “And they could be very restrictive. But don’t do it, and we will be looking at sub-2 percent growth until our grandkids are diapering us,” he wrote.
To be sure, American workers are less prepared for retirement than they were at the beginning of the millennium as the number of companies offering 401(k) plans has declined, according to a study of Census data.
Almost half of employees didn’t have a company-sponsored retirement plan in 2013, compared with 39 percent in 1999,
Bloomberg News reports, citing a study by the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York.
Middle-class professionals and managers are increasingly joining the ranks of low-income people who rely mostly on Social Security, but the average Social Security benefit of $15,700 a year can’t replace the earnings for people with mid-five and six-figure salaries, according to the news service.
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