Tim Egan has been working since he was 14. He’s now 56 and has spent most of his career as a restaurant manager. He has virtually nothing saved for retirement and, until last month, never had a 401(k) account.
Little wonder: Only two of the 20 restaurants where Egan has worked in the past four decades had retirement-savings plans.
“The restaurant business is what I’m good at, but few owners, especially of small places, offer retirement benefits, no matter how much money you help them earn,” says Egan, who worked his way up from dishwasher to waiter to bartender before rising to manager 20 years ago.
Egan’s story isn’t unusual among the legions of Americans who work part time, switch jobs frequently or earn their livings at small companies, which generated two-thirds of all new jobs last year. Even as people live longer and must save more for old age than prior generations, most can not depend on any help from employers. Almost half of U.S. workers didn’t have a company-sponsored retirement plan in 2013, compared with 39 percent in 1999, according to an analysis of Census Bureau data by the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research in New York.
There is only one true savings account, and everyone should own it...
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