10/16/2015 – The Recession Hurt Americans’ Retirement Accounts More Than Anybody Knew (The Atlantic)

The nation’s 401(k)s and IRAs lost about $2.4 trillion in the final two quarters of 2008, and the average loss that year for workers who had been on the job for 20 years was, according to one estimate, about 25 percent. Since then, headlines have been telling a much cheerier story: The S&P 500 wasup 54 percent between early 2009 and late 2011, and GDP increased by 10 percent during the same time period. These recoveries were seen as a sign that retirement balances were, on the whole, on the upswing again.

Read the full article in The Atlantic.