Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
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That’s what listeners to a segment this morning on households’ lack of adequate savings probably concluded. The piece noted that many households lack the savings needed to support themselves through a period of unemployment or illness. It then talked about various efforts to promote savings.
While it would be beneficial for most people to save more (although it would hurt the economy in the short-run), a major problem is the large fees charged by financial institutions. Fees can eat up as much as one-third of the money in 401(k)-type accounts. It would have been worth at least mentioning the problem of high bank fees as an issue in this discussion.