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'That’s Not Winning': Record Numbers of US Workers Are Raiding Their 401(k)s in Trump Economy
"Instead of helping, Trump made the largest healthcare cuts in American history and doubled down on his costly tariff taxes," said Rep. Brendon Boyle.
Mar 04, 2026
Even as President Donald Trump has declared that the US is in a "golden age" with the "greatest" economy on record, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that a record number of US workers are dipping into their retirement savings.
The Journal cited recent data from Vanguard Group showing that 6% of the 401(k) plans it administers took a hardship withdrawal in 2025, up from 4.8% that took such a withdrawal in 2024.
The top reasons for such withdrawals last year were avoiding eviction or paying off medical expenses, according to Vanguard.
The Journal noted that the Vanguard data about hardship withdrawals comes as "more Americans are falling behind on debt payments, including on some types of mortgages, putting them at risk of foreclosure," and "the average income of clients seeking help from credit-counseling agencies is rising."
Some Democrats quickly pounced on the Journal report, which they said undercut Trump's rosy assessment of the US economy.
"Record numbers of Americans are raiding their 401(k)s to avoid eviction or pay medical bills," wrote Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.). "That's not winning."
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) pointed to the Journal report and accused Trump and the GOP of exacerbating these problems with the cuts to Medicaid contained in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that the party passed in 2025.
"A record number of Americans are dipping into their retirement savings just to stay afloat," wrote Boyle, the ranking member of the House Budget Committee. "A leading cause: Skyrocketing healthcare costs. Instead of helping, Trump made the largest healthcare cuts in American history and doubled down on his costly tariff taxes."
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) responded to the report by saying, "This is not the golden age Donald Trump promised."
Andrew Bates, former senior deputy press secretary for President Joe Biden, also pointed to the GOP budget law as a key reasons for Americans' deteriorating financial security.
"The GOP in Washington makes the biggest healthcare and energy cuts in history, just to lower taxes for the rich," he wrote. "'Golden Age' for Jeffrey Epstein’s surviving friends, shittiness for everyone else."
Ann Larson, co-founder of Debt Collective, noted that while the data on 401(k) withdrawals is disturbing, it doesn't tell the whole story of the dire overall state of Americans' finances.
"This is bad, but add in the almost half of older Americans who have ZERO retirement savings to pull from," Larson wrote, "and the picture is even more horrifying."
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Report Names Institutions Behind $4.3 Trillion in Climate-Wrecking Investments
"Investors need to draw a red line on fossil fuel expansion and they need to do it now," said an author of the report, which cites Vanguard and BlackRock as the largest institutional investors in fossil fuel companies.
Jul 09, 2024
Institutional investors including the Vanguard Group and BlackRock collectively own $4.3 trillion in the stocks and bonds of fossil fuel companies, according to a report released Tuesday by Urgewald, a nonprofit based in Germany.
Urgewald and partner nonprofits tracked investments into nearly 3,000 companies in the coal, oil, and gas sectors for Investing in Climate Chaos 2024, a report that follows on similar research they published last year.
The $4.3 trillion in financing jeopardizes the quick phaseout of fossil fuels that's necessary to avoid unmanageable climate breakdown, the report says.
"If institutional investors continue backing companies that are still expanding their coal, oil, and gas operations, it will be impossible to phase out fossil fuels in time," Katrin Ganswindt, Urgewald's head of financial research, said in the report. "Investors need to draw a red line on fossil fuel expansion and they need to do it now."
🆕 Investing In Climate Chaos reveals top investors in coal, oil and gas.
👉 Discover who they are & the full report:https://t.co/ix94o84YtT
📢 Calling on all investors to stop all forms of financial support (bonds, loans...) to companies developing new fossil fuel projects. pic.twitter.com/VsRmXD41tl
— Reclaim Finance (@ReclaimFinance) July 9, 2024
Urgewald looked at the holdings of more than 7,500 institutional investors worldwide including "pension funds, insurance companies, asset managers, hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowment funds, and asset management arms of commercial banks" as of May 2024.
The true investment total may be higher than $4.3 trillion, given the lack of transparency in bond markets; the report authors estimated that they only included 20-30% of actual bond holding in fossil fuel companies.
Of the $4.3 trillion, more than half was invested by U.S.-based companies. In fact, $1.1 trillion was held by just four companies: Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, and Capital Group—dubbed "the filthy four" by Urgewald—each of which had more than $160 billion in fossil fuel investment holdings.
Alec Connon, co-director of Stop the Money Pipeline, said the outsized role of the U.S. was the result of poor governance.
"This mirrors the complete lack of action by U.S. regulators to effectively monitor and address the climate and transition risks of large institutional investors," Connon said in the report. "This inaction lays the ground for the next economic crisis and puts the world on a fast track towards climate chaos."
Nearly $4 trillion of the $4.3 trillion in holdings went to companies that are actively developing new fossil fuel projects, not just tapping existing projects, though the report doesn't specify how much actually went toward new development; many companies do both.
In any case, it's clear that new development abounds: Companies have increased capital expenditure on oil and gas exploration by more than 30% since 2021. ExxonMobil, among the biggest beneficiaries of the institutional investing documented in the report, alone spends $1.4 billion annually searching for new reserves in 37 countries, the publication says.
All of this is in spite of pledges to "transition away" from fossil fuels, as countries agreed to do at the United Nations climate summit in Dubai in December. Environmental campaigners are trying to use those pledges, loophole-ridden as they may be, to pressure institutional investors and regulators to take action.
"The question is, will institutional investors continue snapping up bonds of companies like Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil, or TotalEnergies whose business model relies on heating up the planet?" the report's authors asked. "Or will pension funds, insurers, and asset managers realize that these investments will produce more heatwaves, more catastrophic floods, more climate disasters?"
Urgewald is one of the NGOs that produces the annual Banking on Climate Chaos report, the latest publication of which found that big banks shoveled nearly $7 trillion into fossil fuel companies in the eight years after the Paris agreement was signed in 2015. That report, released in May, showed that major banks including JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup together financed fossil fuel companies to the tune of $705 billion in 2023, the hottest year on record.
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Clergy to Vanguard: Stop Funding Fossil Fuels!
Vanguard must decarbonize, massively scale up sustainable investments, adopt a human rights policy, and use its power to hold the worst climate actors accountable.
Oct 27, 2023
“When the fires burn and the seas rise, not in our name, we say, not in our name, we say, not in our name.”
Earlier this week, we found ourselves singing those words as we were led out by security at an investment industry conference attended by over 500 investors and industry leaders. A few minutes earlier, we had stood up to interrupt a speaker on the panel.
“I’m a mother, a minister, and a client,” Amy called out. “I’m desperately worried about my child’s future. Aren’t you worried about yours?”
Then Chelsea spoke. “Vanguard has $300 billion invested in oil, gas, and coal,” she said as security guards approached to force us to leave. “This is reckless and immoral.”
76% of all investors would rather make a dentist visit than invest in an environmentally destructive company.
Vanguard, of course, is the world’s second largest asset manager, after only BlackRock. The company was sponsoring the Pensions & Investments “Defined Contributions West” conference in Southern California, and one of its executives was speaking on the panel.
Vanguard manages over $7 trillion in assets, and its bread and butter is managing retirement accounts. That means that the millions of customers who rely on Vanguard to manage their investments may have no idea that the company is using their money to worsen the climate crisis.
Here’s the thing: 80% of people want to invest responsibly. One study showed that 76% of all investors would rather make a dentist visit than invest in an environmentally destructive company.
Investors don’t want their retirement funds to destroy their children’s or grandchildren’s future. But Vanguard, BlackRock, and other major asset managers have a minuscule amount of their trillions of investments in sustainable funds. Vanguard is ranked worst among all major asset managers for climate commitments. This is not okay.
The science is clear: There can be no further fossil fuel development if we are to keep the global temperature from rising beyond the 1.5°C threshold that scientists agree is the most warming our planet can bear before utter catastrophe.
And beyond the risks to humanity itself, Vanguard is well aware that climate risk is also financial risk. Vanguard’s investments in the fossil fuel industry could ultimately cost its investors in the long run—putting up to $3 trillion in assets at risk if Vanguard does not act to mitigate climate risk.
Disrupting a professional conference in front of hundreds of attendees was not easy. But we have come to believe that the climate crisis is too urgent to wait.
We are people of faith and spirit. Amy’s Unitarian Universalist faith affirms the interdependent web of all creation. Chelsea’s interspiritual background inspires public action that expresses the deepest moral values. Both of our religious backgrounds call us to work for a more just future for all beings.
So, we stood up.
Our spirituality helped us through the process. To prepare, we grounded ourselves in prayer. We remembered all those suffering from climate disasters, both human and non-human. We held close our visions for a world in which all beings and our common home were revered rather than desecrated for profit. We felt clear in heart and spirit that this was the right thing to do. We were together, supported by other colleagues. Without these spiritual practices and community, we couldn’t have done it.
It would be great if we could simply ask Vanguard to do the right thing, and they’d do it. But for years, countless people have called, written letters, asked for meetings, and held protests. Our colleagues at the Earth Quaker Action Team and Vanguard S.O.S. have led campaigns to push Vanguard to improve its practices, to no avail. In fact, Vanguard has moved in the opposite direction, by withdrawing from the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative.
It is irresponsibly naive to think that polite and rational approaches to this threat are sufficient. As people of faith, we need to summon deeper courage and act. For decades, we’ve pointed to Dr. King and Gandhi as our spiritual heroes. The time has come when we need to draw on the same well of inner strength that made them into giants.
The solutions are clear: Vanguard must decarbonize, massively scale up sustainable investments, adopt a human rights policy, and use its power to hold the worst climate actors accountable.
Vanguard can use its power to give us a chance at a liveable future AND investment returns. But it’s not going to happen until Vanguard experiences a wave of grassroots pressure that forces it to change.
We invite you to act in faith and courage with us by sending a fax to Vanguard. To win, it will take all of us doing all we can, and so we also hope you feel called to do more. Please visit www.GreenFaith.org if you’d like to learn more about how you can take faith-filled action to stop the funding of fossil fuels.
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