{"id":519297,"date":"2026-03-05T01:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T01:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/519297\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T01:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T01:56:08","slug":"thats-not-winning-record-numbers-of-us-workers-are-raiding-their-401ks-in-trump-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/519297\/","title":{"rendered":"‘That\u2019s Not Winning’: Record Numbers of US Workers Are Raiding Their 401(k)s in Trump Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Even as President Donald Trump<\/a> has declared that the US is in a “golden age<\/a>” with the “greatest<\/a>” economy on record, the Wall Street<\/a> Journal reported<\/a> on Wednesday that a record number of US workers<\/a> are dipping into their retirement savings.<\/p>\n

The Journal cited recent data from Vanguard Group showing that 6% of the 401(k) plans it administers took a hardship withdrawal in 2025, up from 4.8% that took such a withdrawal in 2024.<\/p>\n

The top reasons for such withdrawals last year were avoiding eviction or paying off medical expenses, according to Vanguard.<\/p>\n

The Journal noted that the Vanguard data about hardship withdrawals comes as “more Americans are falling behind on debt payments, including on some types of mortgages, putting them at risk of foreclosure,” and “the average income of clients seeking help from credit-counseling agencies is rising.”<\/p>\n

Some Democrats quickly pounced on the Journal report, which they said undercut Trump’s rosy assessment of the US economy.<\/p>\n

“Record numbers of Americans are raiding their 401(k)s to avoid eviction or pay medical bills,” wrote<\/a> Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.). “That’s not winning.”<\/p>\n

Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) pointed to the Journal report and accused Trump and the GOP<\/a> of exacerbating these problems with the cuts to Medicaid<\/a> contained in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that the party passed in 2025.<\/p>\n

“A record number of Americans are dipping into their retirement savings just to stay afloat,” wrote<\/a> Boyle, the ranking member of the House Budget<\/a> Committee. “A leading cause: Skyrocketing healthcare<\/a> costs. Instead of helping, Trump made the largest healthcare cuts in American history and doubled down on his costly tariff taxes.”<\/p>\n

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer<\/a> (D-NY) responded<\/a> to the report by saying, “This is not the golden age Donald Trump<\/a> promised.”<\/p>\n

Andrew Bates, former senior deputy press secretary for President Joe Biden<\/a>, also pointed to the GOP budget law as a key reasons for Americans’ deteriorating financial security.<\/p>\n

“The GOP in Washington<\/a> makes the biggest healthcare and energy cuts in history, just to lower taxes for the rich,” he wrote. “‘Golden Age’ for Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s surviving friends, shittiness for everyone else.”<\/p>\n

Ann Larson, co-founder of Debt Collective, noted that while the data on 401(k) withdrawals is disturbing, it doesn’t tell the whole story of the dire overall state of Americans’ finances.<\/p>\n

“This is bad, but add in the almost half of older Americans who have ZERO retirement savings to pull from,” Larson wrote<\/a>, “and the picture is even more horrifying.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Even as President Donald Trump has declared that the US is in a “golden age” with the “greatest”…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,259296,99,91505,259295,186,259294,184,185,1793,20832],"class_list":{"0":"post-519297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-brendan-boyle","11":"tag-business","12":"tag-chuck-schumer","13":"tag-debt-collective","14":"tag-finance","15":"tag-mike-levin","16":"tag-personal-finance","17":"tag-personalfinance","18":"tag-retirement","19":"tag-vanguard"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}