This, from Slate, provides an interesting postscript to President Bush’s failed effort to add private accounts to Social Security.
As you probably recall, one argument the President made then was that 401(k)s had prepared Americans to become an “ownership society,” and to assume some risk in managing their own retirement savings. Or as Bush explained:
One of the most amazing events came when I was in Mississippi at an automobile manufacturing plant. And I said, how many of you all have got 401(k)s? This was quite a diverse audience, people from all walks of life, mainly line workers. I’ll bet you 95 percent of the hands went up. You know, this isn’t what you call the typical investor class. These are people working hard to put food on the table. And you know what? They’re managing their own money. They’re watching their own asset base grow with time. That’s healthy for our country, saying to somebody, you can grow assets, and you can pass your assets on to whomever you want is good for America. The more people who own something in this country, the better off our country is.
But not all Americans think so far ahead. Take, for instance, Tony Snow:
When Snow came to the White House after several years at the Fox News Channel, it was clear that he had relied entirely on others to save for his retirement. Snow conceded: “As a matter of fact, I was even too dopey to get in on a 401(k). So there is actually no Fox pension. The only media pension I have is through AFTRA [a union].” Even though his employer provided a 401(k) and would have matched contributions, and even though he was earning hundreds of thousands of dollars, Snow had not shown either the interest or financial capability to manage his own retirement benefits.