How We Save for Retirement Has Changed Radically

It’s a very different world from 1972.

We’ve just started putting classic issues of Money online, and it’s eye-popping to see how a half-century changed how we talk about, think about and write about money.

For instance, saving for retirement. In the now long-gone On the Job column, that first issue addressed employee benefits — and retirement was barely mentioned. The article discussed flexible benefits plans, still called cafeteria plans. (That’s where your flex spending, dental or vision plan comes from.) Companies were starting to tinker with letting employees decide if they wanted more of one benefit (like life insurance) over another (like vacation pay). Retirement was mentioned just twice, including when one executive called retirement pay “too important to be juggled around.” (We think he meant it was too important to cut back on, and boy, is that still true.)

At the time, the retirement plan options were limited to pension plans and deferred-compensation arrangements (similar to 401(k)s but they were not an institutionalized plan offered by financial services providers). Individual retirement accounts (IRAs) didn’t come into existence until 1974. The game-changing 401(k) plan was created in 1978.

Take a spin through more classic Money stories here.

Saving for retirement: getting harder

Inflation + saving for retirement is a hard equation for some people. More than half of Americans (54%) have cut back on retirement contributions or stopped saving altogether, amid higher prices, an Allianz survey found. 

The hit to retirement savings varies by demographic:

• Millennials (65%)
• Gen Xers (59%)
• Baby boomers (40%) 

Read our reporter Mary Ellen Cagnassola’s story about the impact of inflation on retirement planning.

— Jill Cornfield, deputy editor

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