2005年NPR美国国家公共电台八月-Do Something Un-American: Save Your Money

On Friday is the Business Report, focuses on your money or in this case, your lack of it. Most Americans simply are not saving anything. The savings¹ rate fell to zero in June which is the lowest level since October of 2001. Now it's commonly said that you should save at least 10% of your income for retirement² but Jonathan Clements says even that is not enough anymore. Clements is the personal finance columnist³ for the Wall Street Journal.

People have heard for years they must save 10% of their pretax salary, if they do that, they'll be able to retire in to comfort, but here is the problem , I mean,the 10% percent rule came about in a world where a lot of people are getting institutional company pensions. And so essentially⁴ they're looking at sort of three sources of retirement funds they had, social security, they had their company pension and they had their personal savings. But what's happened the last 25 years? Well, a lot companies got rid of these traditional company pensions, and so suddenly people are just looking now at social security and their own personal savings. So with their own personal savings, what they need to do to compensate⁵ for the loss of the traditional company pension is to increase the amount of their saving every year. I would argue that people should really be looking at saving 15 or 20% of their income every year.

15 or 20% before or after taxes if I can ask?
That's a pretax amount.

Oh, (so)and does that apply to people that make 200 thousand dollars a year as well as people who make 25 thousand dollars a year? Is there a difference there?

The higher your income, the more you ought to be saving. The reason is this: social security is gonna replicate⁶ a whole lot more of your salary if you are at the lower income level. But once you get up into, you know, hundred, two hundred thousand dollars in annual income, I mean, social security's not gonna go very far in replicating⁷ your current income, and so as a consequence. You're gonna have to do most of that replication. Add your savings, that means you really need to be saving a heck of lot of money every year.

Now your warning is that we should save a lot more than 10%. uh, statistics will suggest that most of us aren't even getting the 10%.

Yeah, you look at what's happened to the US savings rate, starting the early 1990's, I mean the US savings rate just collapsed⁸. I mean just when people ought to be saving more, they are saving less.

How you're saving for retirement, Jonathan, you are 42?

Every which way I can, you know, the first thing that I do, and the first thing that anybody ought to do is to max out on their employers 401K plan, I put in every dollar I possibly can, and the reason is this. You get that inital taxed deduction⁹ , Dow Jones and company where I work, you get a matching contribution from your employer, and you also get the tax/ defered growth. But the best thing about this 401 K plans, is that once you've signed up for them, they are on order part, I mean the money comes straight out of the paycheck. You don't have to make a decision. You never see it. You never miss it.

Do you have in mind and we are looking 20 or 30 years into your future. Do you have in mind that you'll be retiring around 65 or will you work longer?

My notion of retirement is that actually I'd like to retire or at least be able to scale back starting in my 50's. I don't wanna leave the workforce¹⁰ entirely¹¹ but I'd like to have the freedom to maybe go off and do something totally different.

Are you already kinda in that category barely working there in your 40's?

You know, Steve, I'm sitting here bagging out two columns a week, and in my spare time and I work wandering over the NPR studio.

Oh, Jonasson Clements ,thanks for wandering over this morning.

It's my pleasure.

Jonasson Clements is the personal finance columnist for the Wall Street Journal for as long as he can last and he is also a regular guest of this program.

1 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

2 retirement   

n.退休，退职

参考例句：

• She wanted to enjoy her retirement without being beset by financial worries.她想享受退休生活而不必为金钱担忧。
• I have to put everything away for my retirement.我必须把一切都积蓄起来以便退休后用。

3 columnist   

n.专栏作家

参考例句：

• The host was interviewing a local columnist.节目主持人正在同一位当地的专栏作家交谈。
• She's a columnist for USA Today.她是《今日美国报》的专栏作家。

4 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

5 compensate   

vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消

参考例句：

• She used her good looks to compensate her lack of intelligence. 她利用她漂亮的外表来弥补智力的不足。
• Nothing can compensate for the loss of one's health. 一个人失去了键康是不可弥补的。

6 replicate   

v.折叠，复制，模写；n.同样的样品；adj.转折的

参考例句：

• The DNA of chromatin must replicate before cell division.染色质DNA在细胞分裂之前必须复制。
• It is also easy to replicate,as the next subsection explains.就像下一个小节详细说明的那样，它还可以被轻易的复制。

7 replicating   

复制( replicate的现在分词 )； 重复； 再造； 再生

参考例句：

• Applications create these partitions for storing and replicating data. 应用程序创建这些分区用来储存和复制数据。
• The closest real things to these creatures were bits of self-replicating RNA. 最贴近这些造物的实物是能做一点微不足道的自复制的核糖核酸。

8 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

9 deduction   

n.减除，扣除，减除额；推论，推理，演绎

参考例句：

• No deduction in pay is made for absence due to illness.因病请假不扣工资。
• His deduction led him to the correct conclusion.他的推断使他得出正确的结论。

10 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。

11 entirely   

ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那场火灾完全是由于他们失职而引起的。
• His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生统统献给了教育工作。