I've spent the better part of my career administering retirement plans, and have seen with my own eyes what Atrios observes in this article for USAToday:

Over the past few decades, employees fortunate enough to have employer-based retirement benefits have been shifted from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans. We are now seeing the results of that grand experiment, and they are frightening. Recent and near-retirees, the first major cohort of the 401(k) era, do not have nearly enough in retirement savings to even come close to maintaining their current lifestyles.

Frankly, that's an optimistic way of putting it. Let me be alarmist for a moment -- because the numbers are truly alarming. We should be worried that large numbers of people nearing retirement will be unable to keep their homes or continue to pay their rent.

According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, the median household retirement account balance in 2010 for workers between the ages of 55-64 was just $120,000. For people expecting to retire at around age 65, and to live for another 15 years or more, this will provide for only a trivial supplement to Social Security benefits.

Yes. This is the consequence of shifting the responsibility not only for saving, but also for investing. People saving for retirement via 401k plans have taken at least two very deep hits to their investments over the past thirty years. But even if they hadn't, 401k accounts would not be sufficient.

Popular theory at the time dictated that retirement assets should consist of three different things: Social security, personal savings and/or home equity, and retirement savings via IRAs and 401k plans. We all know home equity is gone, thanks to the real estate crash. IRAs and 401ks took a hit during the early 90s, recovered some in the late 90s, and then crashed in 2008.

The solution is one that won't be popular with the "privatize everything" movement:

We need an across the board increase in Social Security retirement benefits of 20% or more. We need it to happen right now, even if that means raising taxes on high incomes or removing the salary cap in Social Security taxes.

I don't see that happening anytime soon. The current generation of soon-to-be retiring baby boomers is screwed. Between health care costs eating through retirement savings, the housing crash, and the likelihood that many of us who lost jobs in 2008 probably won't ever find one again, we're the biggest victims of Reagan 'trickle-down' theories.

Atrios offers a solution: Voters should be demanding that we should not only refuse cuts to Social Security, we should demand they be expanded.

As Kenneth pointed out this week, the Bush-era bill that put the postal service in dire straits by requiring decades of pre-funded health benefits was nothing but a blatant attempt to break their union. Now the Senate is attempting to rectify that (because closing post offices is extremely unpopular with constituents), but they've included a provision that will slash current workers comp payments by 25 percent. Imagine that. It's a pretty large chunk of pain, because about half of federal workers out on workers comp are postal workers.

Working for your government has really become a thankless job:

The Senate passed sweeping U.S. Postal Service reform legislation by a 62-37 vote Wednesday, after months of debate and procedural halts on the measure.

The legislation (S. 1789) allows the agency to offer buyout and early retirement incentives to 100,000 employees, switches to five-day delivery if officials cannot come up with other cost savings within two years, and restructures a requirement that the Postal Service prefund its retirement health benefits with more than $5 billion annually.

It would transfer more than $11 billion from the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund to the Postal Service to help process the large number of USPS employees scheduled to retire in the next few years. It also expands the alternatives USPS must consider before closing a post office.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a previous version of the bill would cost the government $6.3 billion in the next 10 years, a figure USPS has disputed.

New amendments passed into the bill this week scale back workers’ compensation benefits, curtail USPS executive compensation to a level on par with Cabinet secretaries and addresses the backlog of USPS retirement claims at the Office of Personnel Management.

Labor unions were particularly displeased with the inclusion of the workers compensation provision. The measure, first introduced by S. 1789 co-sponsor Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, would give workers injured on the job 50 percent of their pre-disability pay upon reaching retirement age. Under current law, employees disabled on the job can get up to 75 percent of their basic salaries tax-free, plus medical-related expenses. About half the federal employees who currently receive workers’ comp are postal workers.

I would love to see Susan Collins carry all those packages until she understands the strain it puts on the human body. But maybe she's really an android.

[...] An amendment introduced late Wednesday by Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., however, establishes workers’ compensation for government employees injured by acts of terrorism or in zones of armed conflict.

Because somehow it hurts more if a terrorist puts you out of commission? Or is it because it prevents an embarrassing public relations problem, like the one at Ground Zero?

Why are they so surprised? Let's see: for the past 30 years, declining wages. People have tapped themselves out on expensive houses, putting their kids through college, and keeping themselves afloat through extended unemployment -- not to mention medical expenses. If you didn't cash in on the equity in your house when it was still worth something, or have a pension that has held its worth during this recession, how on earth would you have enough money to retire?

Almost 40% of working Americans said they will never afford retirement, according to a report released Wednesday by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

Retirement ranked as the most important issue out of all financial concerns facing Americans, including uninsured medical expenses and rising education costs. In fact, it topped the list for the second year in a row, the survey said.

The majority, or 56%, of those polled said they were not saving for retirement, mostly because of the toll higher gas and food prices were taking on their budgets.

Fifty-five percent said they didn't even know how much they need to save for retirement, while those that thought they did know often underestimated the amount, the AICPA said.

When asked to estimate how much savings they needed to retire at age 65 and live for 20 years, most of those earning $50,000 to $75,000 a year said they needed $250,000 in savings. But assuming inflation and annual expenses of $50,000, that amount would run out in less than 10 years, the AICPA said.

"These statistics suggest we are on the verge of a retirement crisis in America," Jordan Amin, chairman of the National CPA Financial Literacy Commission, said in a statement. "Americans don't know how to prepare for their twilight years, and many have put off figuring it out because they're struggling to make ends meet now."

Gee, you don't suppose a national pension plan would be a good idea? That way, businesses would cut costs because they wouldn't have to deal with the complex pension laws and workers might actually have a pension that was still there when they got old.

This is the first post in a series I am writing as a blogging fellow for the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, a coalition of more than 270 national and state organizations dedicated to preserving and strengthening Social Security.

Do you have a mother?

Is she over 65?

How is she set financially?

How would she fare if she was entirely on her own?

Now answer that question and take her Social Security out of the equation. How would she fare if she was entirely on her own?

You may not realize it, but Social Security is the single most effective program to keep women out of poverty in their retirement years that the nation has ever created.

Here are some facts about women and Social Security that you may not know, but should:

• 26% of women aged 65-69 are reliant upon Social Security for virtually all of their income (90% or more) and that number climbs as women age.

• Although women are more reliant on Social Security to provide their basic needs in retirement, men receive benefits that are about 25% more than those of women. The average benefit for a woman is around $12,000 per year, while for men it is about $16,000 per year.

• This is especially important for women, because far more American women than men -- 11% versus 7% -- lived in poverty in 2009 (the last year for which complete numbers are available.)

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(Danziger Cartoons))

When one is writing a post about retirement security in response to someone else's post on the same topic; namely, the fact that public sector employees' benefits and salaries far outpace the private sector, it is probably a bad idea to write an ending like the quote I'm about to share. Megan McArdle's best moment in her post on pension and retirement security is her parting shot:

Jon Cohn's wish to spread the bounty of pubic sector pensions more broadly seems like, well, wishful thinking.

I'm tempted to end this post right now, since the rest of it was typical right wing retirement twaddle made up by employers who decided at some point that their employees' retirement security wasn't as important as the value of their stock options. But I just can't let her get away with the old conservative saw about unsustainable pensions and the like.

It was nice that a combination of rising life expectancy and broader pension coverage allowed a large segment of American workers to take what amounted to a multi-decade vacation. (Though this was never quite as widespread as people now "remember"). But this was never going to be sustainable.

Perhaps I should forgive the young Ms. McArdle for her arrogance (multi-decade vacations? REALLY?), but again, I can't. Since I was three years away from hitting the workforce when she was born, I think I'll educate her instead.

Retiring workers, you see, open up the workforce for those young bucks with their college degrees and eager-beaver shiny faces. If they have to work until they drop, well, it's far less likely that Junior WhizKid and his roommate Megan McPerky will have a chance of putting their foot in the door, much less earning a decent living.

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(Image courtesy of Danziger cartoons)

There's rumblings afoot over the deficit, "entitlements" (a term I take exception to), and how best to cut spending and debt in as painless a fashion as possible.

This is where we all get to grow up a little, because both sides are right. The debt is too high. Certainly wars and defense budgets are part of it, but there's also the pesky little fact that for far too long, high wage earners paid far too little in taxes. Two years ago I wrote a post warning that taxes need to go up. That was before the recession, the stimulus package, the health care reform package and the newest natural disaster in Louisiana.

The problem isn't taxes. The problem is the tendency of politicians to slam those who can least afford the increase while claiming they're doing it to preserve our "benefits". Whether it's a power pander or just the mistaken belief that the middle class will suck up whatever it's handed without a peep, this time it needs to be different.

Check out this New York Times debate about increasing the Social Security retirement age. There isn't anything I can think of that would be more ill-advised than that, especially now. It's a cheap money grab that looks pretty on paper but carries far too high an economic and political price. Yet, look how it's being framed:

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C&Lers know my father passed away in June this year, which really hit me pretty hard, but he lived to eighty-two and thankfully didn't suffer when he passed. But today is his birthday. I wanted to wish him a Happy Birthday online and celebrate his passing.

Every so often he complained that he got cheated out of a real birthday celebration because of the Christmas holiday, but he did enjoy having his birthday on Christmas, because our whole family was there to give him his cake.

Growing up, my family celebrated Christmas with all our relatives, and it was the one time each year that all my cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents got together on the same day.

After he turned about 50, one of his favorite things to do in life was to dress up as Santa and entertain the kids. He did it almost every Christmas after that, and when he retired from Local 94 in New York, he really looked forward to the holiday season -- because frankly, he was the best Santa I ever saw.

Miracle on 34th Street was one of my favorite Christmas movies growing up as a kid, and my father loved it just as much. The star of the movie was Kris Kringle. And so Dad, here's to you on your birthday -- the world's best Santa Claus.

I hope everybody has a great holiday season.

Campaign analyst Charlie Cook says so far, it's still unlikely that we'll see a Republican sweep in 2010:

To put it another way, as things stand now, Republicans could win every competitive House race and still come up one seat short. That won't be the case, however, if there is further erosion in the ranks of the solid and likely Democratic seats. Although Democrats can take some solace from the fact that no party has ever lost every single competitive House race, none of the four lawmakers who have recently added their names to the retirement list -- Brian Baird of Washington, Bart Gordon of Tennessee, Dennis Moore of Kansas, and John Tanner of Tennessee -- was considered particularly vulnerable a year ago.

For Republicans to take control of the House, more Democrats in swing districts would have to retire. There will be more, but how many?

If 10 or 12 more seats rated as solid or likely Democratic shift to the "lean Democratic" or "toss-up" columns, the fight for control will become much more serious. Washington is awash in rumors of other veteran Democrats contemplating voluntary exits. Some serve in safely Democratic districts, but others represent places not unlike the districts of Baird, Gordon, Moore, and Tanner. Also helping the GOP is its best House recruiting in a long time. A crop of strong candidates will help Republicans win more than their share of contests if the political environment remains what it is today.

Winds that began shifting against Democrats around the end of June, during the House cap-and-trade vote and the beginning of the health care debate, are now transforming their party's potential problems into real ones. That change is causing predictable talk of a 1994-style Republican landslide strong enough to flip the Senate. That talk, though, is just so much hot air.

Anyone with the slightest knowledge of the Senate's 2010 lineup of contests couldn't take such talk seriously. For Republicans to seize the Senate, they would have to hold all six of their open seats, which is quite plausible. All 12 of the GOP incumbents up for re-election would also have to win, which is quite likely. The Republicans would then have to pick up the Delaware and Illinois open seats that Democrats now hold -- a feat that is not difficult to imagine.

However -- and this is where the going would get rough for the Republicans -- they would need to defeat Michael Bennet in Colorado, Barbara Boxer in California, Christopher Dodd in Connecticut, Kirsten Gillibrand in New York, Blanche Lincoln in Arkansas, Harry Reid in Nevada, and Arlen Specter (or Joe Sestak if he wins the primary) in Pennsylvania, plus Republican Gov. John Hoeven of North Dakota would have to run and beat Byron Dorgan.

No party in history has ever run the table that completely. And even then, the GOP would come up one seat short.

The fragility of the Democrats' Senate majority is visible, though, if you look toward 2012, when 23 Democratic seats will be on the line compared with just nine Republican ones, and ahead to 2014, when 20 Democratic seats but only 13 Republican ones will be up for grabs.

Just as much has changed in the past year, much could change in the next. What the past tells us is that it takes a truly major event -- such as the 9/11 attacks of 2001 or the 1998 impeachment of President Clinton -- to improve the fortunes of the president's party going into a midterm election. Only one thing seems certain: 2010 won't be dull.