Every time we look at households’ preparedness for retirement, we find that two-earner couples are in the worst shape.
We generally attribute their status to the fact that one-earner couples receive a Social Security spouse’s benefit equal to 50% of the breadwinner’s while most two-earner couples do not. A recent study, however, suggests another problem: two-earner couples often do not save enough through their 401(k) plans.
Since two-earner households generally earn more than one-earner households, they need more savings. But only about half of private sector workers have a workplace retirement plan at any given time, and people rarely save outside of such plans. As a result, only one person in many two-earner couples is actually saving. In this situation, the spouse with a plan should save more to make up for the non-saving spouse. But 401(k) plans are individual savings vehicles, and contribution decisions are often driven by plan design features like default contribution rates and employer matches, not household earnings.
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