Type in your last name or the company's name at the PBGC website.
Type in your last name or the company's name at the PBGC website.
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Vanguard provides 401k retirement plans to over 3 million participants. Each year they look at the plans and particpants and provide a detailed report. It's a 84 page document that has a lot of interesting info...Here's a look at the Vanguard 401k balances:
In 2009, the average account balance for Vanguard participants was $69,084; the median balance was $23,140. The wide divergence between the median and the average balance is due to a small number of very large accounts that significantly raises the average above the median.
As a result of rising markets, median account balances for Vanguard participants grew by 33% in 2009,
compared with a decline of 31% in 2008. However, account balances remain below 2006 levels.
How America Saves 2010
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Your 401k retirement plan sends out periodic statements...or allows you to log in and look at the account. I hope you monitor on a regular basis!
You'll probably see a summary of the investments and a "pie chart." The pie chart shows the ratio of stocks, bonds and cash in your plan- the asset allocation. The asset allocation is important. If you're a long way from retirement the stock ratio should be higher...if you're closer to retirement stock ratios need to be scaled back. And it's important to monitor the amount of company stock in your plan.
Here’s a suggestion: If company stock represents more than 50% of the total value of your 401(k) plan, you’re probably taking too much risk. Diversifying into other investments within your 401(k) plan, like mutual funds that hold a portfolio of stocks and bonds, you can immediately cut risk. Make some adjustments!
NBANow the situation has reversed: If Congress doesn't change the law soon—and many experts think it won't—the estate tax will come roaring back in 2011.
Not only will the top rate jump to 55%, but the exemption will shrink from $3.5 million per individual in 2009 to just $1 million in 2011, potentially affecting eight times as many taxpayers.
The math is ugly: On a $5 million estate, the tax consequence of dying a minute after midnight on Jan. 1, 2011 rather than two minutes earlier could be more than $2 million; on a $15 million estate, the difference could be about $8 million.
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More than 1.3 million laid-off workers won’t get their unemployment benefits reinstated before Congress goes on a weeklong break for Independence Day.
And hundreds of thousands more will lose their benefits in the coming weeks.
The House voted 270-153 Thursday to extend jobless benefits for people who have been laid off for long stretches, but the gesture was made futile by the Senate’s inability to pass the bill. For the third time in as many weeks, Republicans in the Senate successfully filibustered a similar measure Wednesday night before senators adjourned for vacation.
A little more than 1.3 million people have already lost benefits since the last extension ran out at the end of May, according to the Labor Department. By the end of the week, the number will jump to 1.7 million. By the end of July, it would top 3 million.
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-41.49-7.88-3.34
25 percent at age 62
20 percent at age 63
13 1/3 percent at age 64
6 2/3 percent at age 65
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