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Comment by jnbiche | Hacker News Reader

Some of you are very out of touch. They're not saving for retirement because they can't. First, most of them were not even working jobs with 401k's available. Second, how the hell are you supposed to save when you don't even have enough money to pay your current rent, food, gas, medical expenses? I think some of you imagine everyone is making $80,000-$200,000 a year and they're just being irresponsible and not saving up money because they live beyond their means.

In fact, the number of people who don't have enough for retirement because of this reason is quite small. Most people are there because they or their family had a catastrophic medical event, job loss, and/or some massive loss of value in their home due to the depression (from which they've never recovered).

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I upvoted you, but to be fair to parent, nothing you said invalidates what they wrote. Parent made a statement, and it would seem that because they did not give the “why” you assumed that they’re being a scold. Maybe, maybe not, but the All Holy HN Guidelines suggest taking the charitable interpretation, and I’m going with that.

EDIT: and just as I hit “reply”, parent comes back with a response indicating that the charitable interpretation was wrong. sigh

No, people are too lazy. Making $25k a year, and saving 15% ($3,750) over 45 years at 7% return is $1M.

You also don’t need a 401k. You can do a traditional or Roth IRA.

Leaving me with less than $22K before taxes. Please tell me you’re being sarcastic, and not as out of touch as parent post claims. Because if I were being sarcastic, I’d use the ridiculous numbers you came up with to make my intention clear.

I’m citing numbers for an individual. The median household income is almost $60k. The median household could easily retire with $1M. I’ll say it again, they are too lazy.

So we shouldn't start a family on 21k, but then you say that the median household income is 60k. That's because two married people making an income of 30k each before taxes gives 60k. So which is it don't start a family or do? Why should people with less opportunity not be allowed a family anyway? Even with your 60k median (basically a bit more than 21k each) is hardly enough to live on, saving for retirement is just out of the question. Your logic here is very flawed, without even getting into any other numbers/situations these theoretical people may go through. Take the average cost of health care, utilities, medical bills, dentist bills, rent, and food. Even if these people were to do no eating out and no entertainment, I think you would find that they would not have enough to save for retirement. Throwing the word lazy around is a "lazy" argument

What happens when you come down with an illness that leaves you with a $15,000 medical bill and a month out of work (so you probably lose your job)? Happens to people all the time.

Have you tried raising a family on $21,000 a year, even in a low-cost area? (not to mention an urban area, where such earnings are quite common)

Lazy? Wow.

Sure it happens to people all the time, but in average it does not.

No I have not. No one should even start a family on $21k. Again, poor choices if they do. I’m tired of the mentality of victim hood.

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