If you worry about saving for retirement, you have plenty of company. Just not in the C-suite.
The 100 largest CEO retirement accounts combined are worth $4.9 billion — equal to the retirement savings of 50 million American families, according to a new report by the Center for Effective Government and the Institute for Policy Studies think tanks. (Tweet This) The number of families represents about 116 million Americans, the report said.
Overall, the retirement assets of the 100 CEOs with the most stashed away average $49.3 million, which would generate a monthly retirement check of $277,686.
That figure is in sharp contrast to the median 401(k) account balance of $18,433 at the end of 2013, according to Employee Benefit Research Institute data. And apart from 401(k) plans, employees' retirement savings options are limited: Only 18 percent of private-sector workers had access to defined benefit pension plans as of March, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"Companies have been banking more money by not making their workers secure," said Scott Klinger, director of revenue and spending policies at the Center for Effective Government and a co-author of the study. When they cut the cost of providing retirement benefits to rank-and-file employees, he added, "the stock goes up, CEO pay goes up, and that increases their retirement assets."