Most people manage to leave their 401(k)s untouched until they reach retirement, which is of course their purpose. But a significant number of Americans have found themselves in recent years forced to dip into those savings. According to a study conducted by a company called HelloWallet, one in four 401(k) savers has raided his or her account for preretirement needs.
In 2010, the most recent year for which we have figures, workers took out some $70 billion from their 401(k) accounts prematurely. When you realize that workers contributed $175 billion to their 401(k)s in 2010, and employers made about $120 billion in contributions to their employees' 401(k)s, you can see that this is a very significant concern.
Add those figures together, and the result is that for every dollar that Americans put into a 401(k) in 2010, there was nearly 25 cents taken out. That's a frightening trend.
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