President Trump took time at the podium during his State of the Union address to (of course) extol the strong economy, and 401ks were specifically mentioned.
“Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone. After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages,” the president said during the joint speech to Congress. “Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low.”
Claiming that small business confidence is at an all-time high, and singling out two small business owners in attendance, the president added that the stock market “has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value. That is great news for Americans’ 401k, retirement, pension, and college savings accounts.”
The reality is a bit more complicated, critics were quick to note. Not all Americans have, or have access to, employer-sponsored retirement plans, and Commerce Department data released Monday shows the lowest savings rates among Americans since 2007. However, the recently-passed tax cut might halt the savings slide (at least temporarily), Reuters noted upon release of Commerce’s figures, something to which Trump referred.
“And just as I promised the American people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history. We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than $4,000. Small businesses have also received a massive tax cut, and can now deduct 20 percent of their business income.”
Since the tax cuts’ passage, he said, “roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses—many of them thousands of dollars per worker. Apple has just announced it plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America, and hire another 20,000 workers.”
With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
