Are we being tricked into putting too much money into our 401(k) plans?

There’s been a rash of stories lately about how we’re saving too much for retirement carried by such publications as The New York Times, USA Today, MarketWatch. They cite studies by contrarian economists that tell us we’re all being tricked by the on-line calculators put there by the fund providers to get us to invest more. Yesterday, a panel of academics and analysts at the National Aging Conference in Chicago took issue with this growing coverage that many people – including the boomers – will have enough at retirement.

But what about the unknown and the unexpected? Can we predict with certainty future investment performance, tax rates, health care costs, or a major emergency or family crisis? Of course not. And since we can’t, we’ll continue to pound out the same message to 401(k) participants as we have been since the beginning: save as much as you can!

Maybe the best response to these stories was made by Harry Rick Moody, director of academic affairs for AARP who was quoted at the National Aging Conference, "“Next we’re going to be told we’re eating too little.”