Thanks to tax and pension rules that allow top corporate executives to stash away massive amounts of tax-deferred savings while ordinary workers are strictly limited as to how much they can put into 401(k)s, retirement is prime time for economic inequality, a new report from the Institute for Policy Studies shows:
Just 100 CEOs have company retirement funds worth $4.7 billion — a sum equal to the entire retirement savings of the 41 percent of U.S. families with the smallest nest eggs.
This $4.7 billion total is also equal to the entire retirement savings of the bottom:
- 59 percent of African-American families
- 75 percent of Latino families
- 55 percent of female-headed households
- 44 percent of white working class households
These top 100 CEOs have retirement accounts that could give them more than $250,000 a month in income for the rest of their lives. By contrast, the median 401(k) account—and bear in mind that many workers don’t have any kind of retirement savings—would produce an income of just $101 a month.
Economic inequality is with us cradle to grave, that’s for sure.