Record Number of 401(k) Millionaires Amid Strong Markets
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What happened
In second-quarter 2026 results covering the period ended June 30, Fidelity Investments, the largest U.S. 401(k) provider, reported that the average 401(k) balance among accounts it manages rose 13.1 percent year over year to a record $155,800, the average IRA balance rose 10 percent to a record $144,523, and the average 403(b) balance was $145,000. The number of Fidelity 401(k) accounts with at least $1 million rose 19 percent from the first quarter to a record 769,000, about 3 percent of its 25.8 million 401(k) accounts. Combined employer and employee 401(k) contribution rates held at 14.4 percent, the employee contribution rate remained at a record 9.6 percent, and the S&P 500 gained 15 percent in the quarter. Fidelity also reported that 19.5 percent of workers had an outstanding 401(k) loan, about 2.8 percent took a new loan in the quarter, and the share taking a hardship withdrawal rose to 3 percent from 2.6 percent a year earlier. A 2026 NFP survey of 1,000 U.S. working adults found that 69 percent lacked confidence they would retire comfortably, 72 percent said their retirement savings were off track, and 46 percent were deprioritizing retirement saving or unable to save at all.
Omitted — what each side leaves out
Unpacked
The same Fidelity quarter is told as two different events. Average balances appear on both sides, but the rest of the snapshot does not. Left-leaning coverage never reports that millionaire 401(k) accounts hit a record, so a reader cannot see how concentrated the top of the boom was. Right-leaning coverage never reports that more workers took loans and hardship withdrawals, so a reader cannot see the leakage sitting beside those records. Left-leaning coverage at CNBC states hardship withdrawals reached 3 percent. Right-leaning coverage at the New York Post states millionaire accounts reached 769,000.
Left-leaning coverage calls the accounts a "piggy bank." Right-leaning coverage describes a "deluge of retirement fund millionaires."
How much of the record average balance is just the millionaire accounts pulling up the mean?
Bottom line
CNBC and the New York Post each ran only half of Fidelity's record 401(k) quarter: one skipped the 769,000 millionaire accounts, the other skipped the hardship withdrawals.
The receipts — 6 facts one side's coverage lacks
- Fidelity 401(k) accounts with at least $1 million reached a record 769,000, up 19% from the prior quarter
- The share of workers taking a 401(k) hardship withdrawal rose to 3% from 2.6% year over year
- 19.5% of workers had an outstanding 401(k) loan
- 72% of workers in an NFP survey said their retirement savings are off track
- 46% of workers are deprioritizing retirement savings or unable to save at all, per NFP
- The average 401(k) contribution rate including employer and employee held at 14.4%
The Left View
CNBC framed the record balances as coinciding with workers using retirement accounts “as a piggy bank to ease financial pressures amid a broader affordability crunch,” and treated the rise in loans and hardship withdrawals as possible evidence that “household finances are becoming more strained.” It quoted planner Cathy Curtis on a “cash crunch” when wages lag housing, utilities, groceries, and transportation, and Navy Federal Credit Union economist Heather Long calling inflation “the No. 1 problem in the U.S. economy right now” and affordability “the No. 2 problem.” Curtis said tapping a 401(k) should be a last resort because it “disrupts long-term retirement savings,” jeopardizes compound interest through plan “leakage,” and carries a “behavioral downside” in which using the account for daily expenses “can be easier to tap it again.” The outlet attributed the rebound in part to market gains after an earlier-year sell-off it said was sparked by the Iran war, plus savings rates near Fidelity’s 15 percent recommended benchmark.
The Right View
The New York Post led with America’s “population of 401(k) millionaires” hitting a record “thanks to strong market,” tying the quarterly jump to a bullish S&P 500 and employees who “put away money at historically high rates despite growing financial pressures, rising grocery costs, and pricey utility bills.” It quoted Fidelity’s Michael Shamrell saying the firm was “really encouraged” that “despite a lot of the things that have happened throughout 2026, we’re seeing consistent savings rates” and “We’re not seeing people pull back on how much they’re contributing to their 401(k)s.” The piece said the gains were mostly among older Americans who had saved for decades, noted that most workers remain far from $1 million, and cited NFP’s weak-confidence findings. Shamrell cautioned against treating $1 million as a universal target because “everybody’s different.”
Our Take (balanced)
The left’s strongest argument is that the same quarter that set record averages also saw more loans and hardship withdrawals, which CNBC’s sources treat as evidence of an inflation-and-affordability squeeze that can permanently erode compounding once workers treat retirement accounts as cash. The right’s strongest argument is Fidelity’s finding that contribution rates held at record or near-record levels while the millionaire count surged with the market—evidence, in Shamrell’s words, that savers did not “pull back” despite cost pressures. The central unresolved tension is whether those records describe broadly healthier retirement security or a split in which long-tenured high-balance accounts and a rising market lift the averages while typical workers, whose mean balances remain far below $1 million and who largely told NFP they are off track, experience leakage from the same plans.
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