From Here to Security: How Workplace Savings Can Keep America's Promise

CHAPTER 1

AMERICA’S RETIREMENT SAVINGS CHALLENGE

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

—FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, Inaugural Address, 1933

America’s retirement future can certainly seem terribly threatening. In every media outlet—from books to blogs, TV to Twitter, magazines to think-tank white papers and academic studies, a host of troubling reports suggest that we’re on the cusp of a pervasive retirement “crisis.” They warn of a coming wave of elderly poverty and bitter intergenerational conflicts that pit America’s boomers against millennials, their own children.

These grim scenarios are exaggerated. But they are not wholly groundless. America’s retirement savings challenge is very real. Here are some points to consider:

• About two-thirds ...