Washington?s deficit hawks and Wall Street billionaires have invested an enormous amount of time and resources to convince the American public that reducing our national deficit should be a top economic priority, even though our nation is still struggling to create jobs and boost the economy. Many have even targeted Social Security as a way to pay down our debt.But a new report released today provides a startling look at a deficit no one is talking about—the $6.6 trillion Retirement Income Deficit facing millions of Americans. The Retirement Deficit is the gap between the retirement savings and pensions Americans have today and what they should have.?While policymakers talk about budget deficits, there is a massive and growing Retirement Income Deficit that has largely been ignored by Washington. This deficit shows just how bad the crisis has become.? Karen Friedman, Pension Rights Center?The key sources of income that retirees have relied on are either under attack ? in the case of Social Security ? or disappearing ? in the case of traditional pensions. 401(k) plans are not working, and millions of workers have neither a pension nor a 401(k) account. Clearly, the current private retirement system is failing most Americans.? Ross Eisenbrey, Economic Policy Institute?Just to give you a sense of the magnitude of this number, that is about 5 times the projected Federal Deficit for 2010. Another way of understanding the size of this figure is the often-used trip to the moon analogy. $6.6 trillion is enough dollars that, if lined up end to end, they would stretch to the moon and back 1,000 times and still leave enough left over to pay NASA?s budget for the next 83 years ? and you?d still have enough pocket change left over to give every person in this room $100 million each! That is a lot of money.? Maria Freese, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and MedicareRetirement USA, an initiative working for a new retirement system, has launched a month-long campaign ?Wake Up Washington? to do just that?wake up lawmakers to the reality that our nation is facing a retirement income crisis in which working Americans now face a very uncertain future. It?s time America?s retirees ensure Washington is not allowed to continue to ignore the largest deficit threatening working Americans–the Retirement Income Deficit.
