Scrambled Nest Eggs

Pensions vs. 401(k)s: What’s the difference? A quick primer.

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since 1975, companies have gone from contributing more than 90 percent of their workers’ retirement funds to pitching in less than half. How? Mostly by switching from “defined benefit” pension plans to 401(k) and similar “defined contribution” accounts. In such a shift, employees typically lose about one-third of their benefits. Some other key differences:

Pension vs 401(k)

Company assumes risk of investing

In addition to wages

Benefit depends on your salary, work history

Guaranteed by federal government

Employer pays fees and expenses

Company must contribute unless plan shut down

Employee assumes risk

Taken out of wages

Benefit depends on stock market

No guarantee

Employee pays

Company can suspend contributions
at will

 

1983 vs 2007

Percentage of workers with retirement plans who had:

Scrambled Nest Eggs Pie Charts

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WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

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