Problems with 401k Plans discussed on 60 minutes:
- Limited number of mediocre mutual funds for investments.
- Numerous hidden fees erode principal.
- 401k owners lack investment skills to choose good investment vehicles.
Watch the video below!
Link: 60 Minutes: Older Americans’ 401(k)s Have Plummeted; Many Fear They Will Never Get To Retire
The effects of the current economic crisis have touched everyone. Even if you still have a good job and a paid up mortgage, chances are your monthly 401(k) statement will remind you that you’ve lost a good chunk of your savings.
Trillions of dollars have evaporated from those accounts that have become the prime source of retirement funds for a majority of American workers, affecting their psyche and their future. If you are still young enough, there’s time to rebuild and recover, but if you are in your 50s, 60s or beyond the consequences can be dire, and its drawing attention to the shortcomings of a retirement system that has jeopardized the financial security of tens of millions of people.
401(k)s turned out to be so much cheaper than funding pensions, that many companies decided to freeze their pension plans and replace them with 401(k)s. The decision created millions of new employee investors for Wall Street and the financial community. And they pounced on the opportunity.
“If you go back and track the mutual fund growth and assets, and you track the growth in 401(k) plans, it looks like a railroad track leading to the sky. They are parallel tracks,” he told Kroft.
The big beneficiaries were the mutual funds, Hamilton said.
When employers began turning 401(k)s into retirement plans, the financial community was not shy about promoting them as such. The prospect of trillions of dollars in the hands of unsophisticated investors opened the door for all sorts of potential abuses.
“The fact is that the typical 401(k) investor is a financial novice. They don’t know a stock from a bond. And we give ‘em a list of 20 or 30 mutual funds with really, really powerful names, you know, they sound like, ‘Gee, that’s where I want to have my money,’” Hamilton said,
“What are the, generally, the quality of the mutual funds in 401(k) plans?” Kroft asked.
“Mediocre,” Hamilton replied. “I’m being real honest with you, with half the funds on the list really dogs, what people would characterize as dogs shouldn’t be on the list to start with.”
“There clearly has been a raid on these funds by the people of Wall Street. And it’s cost the savers and the future retirees a lot of money that would otherwise be in their account, independent of the financial collapse,” Rep. George Miller [D-CA] said.
Congressman Miller is chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor, and a staunch critic of the 401(k) industry, especially its practice of deducting more than a dozen undisclosed fees from its clients’ 401(k) accounts.
“Now you got a bunch of economic wizards jumping in and taking money out of your retirement plan, and they don’t wanna tell you how much, you can’t decipher it in simple English, and they’re not interested in disclosing it, or having any transparency about it,” Miller told Kroft.
“And most of the people that look at their 401(k)s have no idea that these fees are being taken out?” Kroft asked.
“No. Where would you find it? Where would you find these fees in this prospectus? You can look on any page you want, and when you’re all done reading it, and you will find some of the fees and the commissions here, but you won’t find them all, and I’ll bet you won’t find half of ‘em,” Miller said.
There are legal fees, trustee fees, transactional fees, stewardship fees, bookkeeping fees, finder’s fees. The list goes on and on.
Miller’s committee has heard testimony that they can eat up half the income in some 401(k) plans over a 30-year span. But he has not been able to stop it.
“We tried to just put in some disclosure and transparency in these fees. And we felt the full fury of that financial lobby,” he said.
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