“All of this has always ignored the mathematical fact that scrimping and saving and investing wisely will not save you if you don’t have enough money in the first place. If you are a low-wage worker who cuts your expenses to the bone in order to sock away $500 a year, on which you earn 8%, you will still not go more than a year in retirement without starving to death. The math just doesn’t work. We need to actually give people more money. This is common sense, but is anathema to the sort of magical thinking that says that the root of all poverty is bad decisions by the poor.”

Read the full article: Oh Damn, 401(k)s Aren’t Magic