The Retirement Decision: Achieve Financial Independence with Your 401(k). This item is unavailable.The Retirement Decision: Achieve Financial Independence with Your 401(k)

45 million Americans participate in company sponsored 401(k) plans.  These workers are diligently saving and investing for their anticipated retirements as the country quietly moves away from the old world of comprehensive government guardianship to a more modern notion of “ownership society.”  Responsibility for financial security in retirement is shifting subtly away from the collective and toward the individual.
 
This impending “ownership society,” like any new frontier, is rife with meaningful opportunities as well as pronounced risk.  Redistributing wealth back to the individual will unquestionably produce mixed results.  Some workers will very likely experience much prosperity while others may get left behind as they encounter unforeseen hazards along the way.  One factor, however, appears indisputably certain: employee education will emerge as a major determinant as to whether workers prevail or fail in their efforts to become financially secure in retirement.

Michael D. Rose spent four years as a retail stockbroker in Toledo, OH, where he became interested in retirement plans and personal retirement planning.  One year after joining Benetech, Inc., a national actuarial and 401(k) plan administration firm, in 1989, Mike was promoted to Regional Vice President and moved to Chicago, where he developed the firm’s Midwest territory.  He then joined Lord Abbett & Co. in 1995, where he was named Director of Retirement Planning, and promoted to executive partnership in 2002.  From 1995 until his retirement in 2004, Mike built Abbett’s 401(k) business from 12 plans to over 10,000.