{"id":457665,"date":"2026-03-04T20:37:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T20:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/457665\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T20:37:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T20:37:10","slug":"retirement-balances-are-up-but-more-workers-took-hardship-withdrawals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/457665\/","title":{"rendered":"Retirement balances are up, but more workers took hardship withdrawals"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Financial<\/p>\n

In his\u00a0State of the Union address<\/a>, President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0said “your 401(k)s are way up” \u2014 and they are, but hardship withdrawals are also up, new data shows. <\/p>\n

“Since I took office, the typical 401(k) balance is up by at least $30,000,” Trump said<\/a>\u00a0in the annual speech before Congress last month. <\/p>\n

The average\u00a0401(k)<\/a>\u00a0balance rose by $14,700 to $146,400 over the course of 2025, ending the year up 11% from a year earlier, according to new data released Wednesday from Fidelity Investments<\/a>, the nation’s largest provider of 401(k) savings plans.<\/p>\n

The average\u00a0individual retirement account<\/a>\u00a0balance also gained $9,561 to $137,095 in 2025, Fidelity found \u2014 a 7% increase year over year.<\/p>\n

Read more CNBC personal finance coverage<\/p>\n

Retirement account balance averages increased by 13%, driven primarily by market gains, a separate report by Vanguard Group found. <\/p>\n

Across all plans, the average account balance was $167,970 as of the end of 2025, according to Vanguard’s report, also released Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\"Tax<\/p>\n

Rising balances were further buoyed by several “nonfinancial factors,” such as positive savings behaviors<\/a>, said Mike Shamrell, Fidelity’s vice president of thought leadership<\/p>\n

The average 401(k) contribution rate, including employer and employee contributions, now stands at 14.2%, just below Fidelity’s suggested savings rate of 15%.<\/p>\n

However, another good stretch for the major indexes did help: The\u00a0S&P 500<\/a>\u00a0notched its third consecutive year of solid gains, rallying 24% in 2023, 23% in 2024 and 16% in 2025.\u00a0The\u00a0Nasdaq<\/a>\u00a0jumped 20% in 2025, while the\u00a0Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a>\u00a0rose nearly 13%. <\/p>\n

401(k) hardship withdrawals rise<\/p>\n

Still, savers also\u00a0tapped their accounts<\/a>\u00a0to free up cash, which experts say indicates underlying financial strain. <\/p>\n

The share of workers with an outstanding loan in 2025 was 19.4%, up slightly from 18.9% in 2024, according to Fidelity. About 9% of workers took out a new loan from their 401(k) last year, including for hardship reasons. That’s down from 9.5% in 2024.<\/p>\n

Vanguard’s report showed an uptick in hardship withdrawals. Roughly 6% of workers took a hardship withdrawal in 2025, a record high. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In his\u00a0State of the Union address, President\u00a0Donald Trump\u00a0said “your 401(k)s are way up” \u2014 and they are, but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[164891,164892,45036,5830,7857,84,273,66869,4954,141,4176,158685,4948,4174,6920,4175,164893,4272,56,54,55,161246,160774],"class_list":{"0":"post-457665","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-es26h","9":"tag-nq26h","10":"tag-401k-plans","11":"tag-blackrock-inc","12":"tag-breaking-news-investing","13":"tag-business","14":"tag-business-news","15":"tag-charles-schwab-corp","16":"tag-donald-j-trump","17":"tag-donald-trump","18":"tag-finance","19":"tag-invesco-qqq-trust","20":"tag-investment-strategy","21":"tag-personal-finance","22":"tag-personal-saving","23":"tag-personalfinance","24":"tag-principal-financial-group-inc","25":"tag-retirement-planning","26":"tag-uk","27":"tag-united-kingdom","28":"tag-unitedkingdom","29":"tag-vanguard-sp-500-etf","30":"tag-vanguard-total-stock-market-index-fund-admiral-shares"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}