Oh, I know the Garrison Keillor “above average” business is beaten to death in this frozen tundra that we call home. But I can’t help but make the reference once a year….

The Employee Benefit Research Institute says that 55.3 percent of the country’s full-time workers ages 21- to 64 participated in a workplace retirement plan. In Minnesotans are above average, with 64.4 percent of workers participate in a workplace plan. Our neighbors in Wisconsin topped the list with 67.7 percent of workers enrolled in retirement plans.

Curious? Here’s the list of all 50 states.

My fear is that in this economy, more and more companies will ditch 401(k) matches and other savings incentives in the name of cutting expenses. If that happens, promise me you’ll keep contributing, maybe even upping your contribution by a point or two or three? If your total contribution (your cash plus matching money) into a retirement plan isn’t a double digit number, I’d take a close look at whether you’re on track to retire.

By the way, for you maxer-outers, the 2009 maximum contribution rate for 401(k)s increases by $1,000 to $16,500. Those 50 and older can contribute $5,500 above and beyond that.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 29th, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under retirement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.