More Americans are dipping into retirement funds for emergencies

We’ve heard a lot about the big swings in Americans’ savings these past few years. Workers socked away lots of money early in the pandemic, but as prices rose those savings dwindled, and many people have increasingly relied on credit cards to get by. Some are tapping into another source of funds: retirement accounts.

This week, Fidelity Investments — which is a Marketplace underwriter — reported that in the July-through-September quarter, the percentage of workers making a “hardship withdrawal” from their retirement savings ticked up again to 2.3%. 

It’s a small percentage of workers, but it could have big implications for them in the long run.

A hardship withdrawal from a retirement account can be made only for an actual hardship, said Mike Shamrell with Fidelity.

“It’s not like they are looking to take a vacation or go to their college roommate’s bachelorette party or something like that,” Shamrell said.

The most common reasons for these kinds of withdrawals in Fidelity’s latest report were avoiding eviction or foreclosure and paying medical expenses.

“So it’s just part of that whole scene of households not having as much wealth and having more debt than they did in the last couple of years,” said Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor of economics at the New School for Social Research.

Inflation and student loan repayments are already draining Americans’ savings, she said. So, when they’re hit with an emergency expense, their retirement funds are their only backup. In the short term, they’ll have to pay taxes on these withdrawals, she said, which can hurt long-term too.

“Most people who take it out are people who are prone to financial trouble, and so they don’t make it up later on in life, and they end up in retirement with a much higher risk of being poor,” Ghilarducci said.

But a hardship withdrawal may be better than other options, said Anqi Chen at Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research. “Because then they’re not accessing debt measures or credit cards to pay off these expenses,” Chen said.

But the fact that some Americans are facing these choices in the first place points to a bigger problem, said Greg McBride, a financial analyst at Bankrate.

“Americans are undersaved for emergencies and retirement as well. But that’s not a new trend. That’s become as much of the American fabric as baseball and apple pie,” he said.

It may be slow to roll out, McBride said, but next year, a new federal law takes effect that will make it easier to access retirement funds for emergencies.