{"id":41717,"date":"2026-03-04T14:05:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T14:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=41717"},"modified":"2026-03-04T14:05:15","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T14:05:15","slug":"retirement-balances-are-up-but-more-workers-took-hardship-withdrawals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/?p=41717","title":{"rendered":"Retirement balances are up, but more workers took hardship withdrawals"},"content":{"rendered":"

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U.S. President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address on Feb. 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. <\/p>\n

Kenny Holston-Pool\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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In his\u00a0State of the Union address<\/a>, President\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0said “your 401(k)s are way up” \u2014 and they are, but hardship withdrawals are also up, new data shows. <\/p>\n

“Since I took office, the typical 401(k) balance is up by at least $30,000,” Trump said<\/a>\u00a0in the annual speech before Congress last month. <\/p>\n

The average\u00a0401(k)<\/a>\u00a0balance rose by $14,700 to $146,400 over the course of 2025, ending the year up 11% from a year earlier, according to new data released Wednesday from Fidelity Investments<\/a>, the nation’s largest provider of 401(k) savings plans.<\/p>\n

The average\u00a0individual retirement account<\/a>\u00a0balance also gained $9,561 to $137,095 in 2025, Fidelity found \u2014 a 7% increase year over year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Read more CNBC personal finance coverage<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Retirement account balance averages increased by 13%, driven primarily by market gains, a separate report by Vanguard Group found. <\/p>\n

Across all plans, the average account balance was $167,970 as of the end of 2025, according to Vanguard’s report, also released Wednesday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Rising balances were further buoyed by several “nonfinancial factors,” such as positive savings behaviors<\/a>, said Mike Shamrell, Fidelity’s vice president of thought leadership<\/p>\n

The average 401(k) contribution rate, including employer and employee contributions, now stands at 14.2%, just below Fidelity’s suggested savings rate of 15%.<\/p>\n

However, another good stretch for the major indexes did help: The\u00a0S&P 500<\/a>\u00a0notched its third consecutive year of solid gains, rallying 24% in 2023, 23% in 2024 and 16% in 2025.\u00a0The\u00a0Nasdaq<\/a>\u00a0jumped 20% in 2025, while the\u00a0Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a>\u00a0rose nearly 13%. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

401(k) hardship withdrawals rise<\/h2>\n
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Still, savers also\u00a0tapped their accounts<\/a>\u00a0to free up cash, which experts say indicates underlying financial strain. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The share of workers with an outstanding loan in 2025 was 19.4%, up slightly from 18.9% in 2024, according to Fidelity. About 9% of workers took out a new loan from their 401(k) last year, including for hardship reasons. That’s down from 9.5% in 2024.<\/p>\n

Vanguard’s report showed an uptick in hardship withdrawals. Roughly 6% of workers took a hardship withdrawal in 2025, a record high. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. President Donald Trump delivers the State of the Union address on Feb. 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":41718,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-41717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-investing","8":"cs-entry","9":"cs-video-wrap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialrush.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}