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Comment by cnst | Hacker News Reader

What about the total 401k limit per employer?

Used to be 58k in 2021.

$61,000 for 2022

I've long been curious, are there places that do a 200% match to hit this? That would be super appealing to me as a prospective employee.

It's not exactly in a company's best interest to have all of their employees retiring in their mid thirties.

The only reason they would be paying enough for mega backdoor Roths is if they were betting they could not find employees they want that would take less.

which is why they should want to support employees saving for age 60+ retirement so they don't feel rich at 30.

Mega backdoor roth allows you to hit that. Might go away this year though so we will see how employers respond.

Just to be pedantic, it's post-tax contributions that allow (very high earners) to hit that. You may choose to do a mega backdoor roth with those post-tax contributions if your plan allows it, but you can hit the limit without doing a mega backdoor, just by contributing post-tax to your 401(k).

Visa does 200% match but up to a certain % of base salary. Theoretically, possible.

I feel like those things are basically for small business owners. I max all that stuff out plus max the profit sharing limits for myself. Never had an employer come even close.

No, but you can hit it via after-tax 401k contributions and then convert those to a Roth IRA (i.e., Mega Backdoor Roth)

Some basically give you a “bonus” (or even part of your salary) that is just given in the form of a mandatory 401k contribution.

At one company, my salary was stated as X, but it was really .97X plus .03X 401k contribution.

Every company has a different way of matching 401k:

https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/401k/

It's actually more complicated than it looks, because the base salaries and total compensation may also differ substantially between the companies, so you can't really compare 401k alone.

Usually the way to hit the 58k limit is through the Megabackdoor:

https://www.levels.fyi/benefits/Mega-Backdoor-Roth-IRA/

Does this mean that I can contribute $20,500 personally, and my employer can still contribute more on top of that?

Yes. 20.5 is your limit but employer can match.

401k match is > than stock options in most cases long term. Of course options can be a lottery you win sometimes.

Yes that’s exactly it. There may be other more complex scenarios where it matters too but this is the most common reason for it I see at least.

In other words, it’s hard to reach the true 401k cap even with huge contribution amounts from everywhere.

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