Ira Retirement Plans Essay, Research Paper

Saving for Retirement

General Purpose: My general purpose is to persuade.

Specific Purpose: My specific purpose is to persuade the audience to start saving for their retirement instead of simply relying on Social Security.

Thematic Statement: Starting to save for retirement early has many benefits over Social Security.

Introduction of Speech

I. I took a survey of thirty BSU students, who are employed, to determine how many of them have started saving for their retirement.

A. Only nine people, out of the thirty responses from various class levels, have started saving for their retirement.

1. This is understandable because most of us probably think that retirement is something that is eons away.

B. Because we are college students, our school schedules make working full time very difficult.

1. We therefore probably do not think about other places for our money outside of food, possibly rent, and especially leisure.

II. I myself have started saving for my retirement by starting an IRA.

A. I will discuss what an IRA is and the benefits of one later.

B. When I was 16, my parent’s and I invested 1000 dollars into an IRA.

1. With an addition of 300 dollars/year, I, being 20 years old, now have an estimated $5200.

2. In the 4 years that I have been working at two jobs, I have an estimated $3200 dollars in Social Security.

III. You simply should not rely on Social Security to support you in your “Golden Years” once retired.

IV. Today I will discuss Social Security, what’s wrong with relying on it, ways that you can start saving for your retirement, and the benefits of saving for your retirement instead of depending on Social Security.

[Now that you have an idea of how saving for retirement applies to you, and also an idea of what you can do to start saving through an IRA account, let me start by discussing Social Security and why it is does not work.]

Body of Speech

I. First of all, allow me to explain what Social Security is.

A. Social Security is a Federal program where they take a percentage from all of the wages earned by workers in this country.

1. You can see what I mean when you examine your paycheck.

B. The money that is collected is put in a trust fund that provides a monthly income for retired workers.

II. According to The Heritage Foundation there are several problems to the current Social Security system.

A. Founded in 1973, The Heritage Foundation is a research and educational institute whose mission is to formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense.

B. Social Security gives a poor rate of return (Heritage Foundation, 2000).

1. The rate of return varies from person to person.

a. For instance, for the best case scenario, a married couple with two children and a single earner receives only 4.74 percent if the earner was born in 1932 (Heritage Foundation, 2000).

b. However, none of us were born in 1932 so that percentage decreases to less than 2.6 percent for those born in 1976 (Heritage Foundation, 2000).

c. Single men do the worst when they only have a rate of return of less than half a percent (Heritage Foundation, 2000).

C. People are becoming more dependent on Social Security.

1. Today, Social Security benefits are the primary source of income for almost two thirds of all retirees (Heritage Foundation, 2000).

D. The majority of people, unless they go to great lengths to find out, don’t know their rate of return on their Social Security taxes.

1. A worker has no clear understanding of the yield on his or her investment in the Social Security program (Heritage Foundation, 2000).

E. There is also a problem with beneficiaries of Social Security

1. For example, the spouse will have to choose between their Social Security or that of their partner.

[Now that you know what social security is and how return rates, dependency, misinformation, and spousal shafts create problems for it, let me give you a way to continue saving, but without the hassles.]

III. There are several ways to save for retirement outside of Social Security, but one of the most popular, aside from stocks is through an IRA.

A. The IRA is the best way to save for retirement.

1. IRA stands for an Individual Retirement Account.

2. Basically what you can do with this type of an account is deposit a maximum of $2000 every year, in addition to the minimum $1000 to start the account, and you will earn interest on it.

a. The earnings are also tax deferred, which means that you won’t be taxed on the earnings until you withdraw it after you’re retirement.

3. This is a long-term investment so you will be penalized if you take your money out before you retire.

a. For example if you withdraw the total $85,000 from your account before you retire, you may receive $10,000 in penalties, $10,000 in federal taxes, and $5,000 in state taxes.

b. You may take a loan from your IRA, without penalties, as long as you pay back the loan, and in a sense, yourself.

4. You might be wondering why you should invest your money in something that penalizes you for wanting it back.

a. Look at it this way, the idea behind the penalizing is to deter you from spending your retirement money.

b. There are short term plans similar to an IRA, called Certificates of Deposits, where you can determine a specific length of time in which you cannot access your money without penalties.

5. Some of you might think that starting a retirement plan is difficult.

a. Here is an application for an IRA, from the Official Citizen Funds web-site, that gives you an idea of how easy it is to set up an IRA (Citizen, 2001).

[Knowing now that an IRA is one of the best ways to save for retirement due to the low risk, compounding interest, spending deterrent penalties, and easy implementing process, let us now focus on how it improves the chances of a comfortable retirement.]

IV. According to Art Ohrtman, a financial planner, for Oppenheimer, there is one way in which someone can increase their retirement funds far beyond what they need for a comfortable retirement (personal communication, November 26, 2001).

A. The key is dedication and the earlier you start, the better off you are.

1. Set up a retirement account such as an IRA.

2. Find an IRA plan that has at least an 8% return rate.

3. Add $100 dollars every month into this account

4. At age 45, stop adding money to this account.

5. By the time you have retired, you will have made about 1.2 million dollars.

B. This is called compounding, the more time you give your investment to grow, the bigger it will get.

C. With the earnings you make, you will be able to pay for your child’s education. You can even start saving now to pay for a future child.

[Social Security is unreliable, with its low return rates and unpredictability, to the point where you must look elsewhere for a comfortable retirement. With an IRA plan you have a low risk way of making money so that you may one day achieve what you consider the American dream to be. There is one thing I can recommend that will help you with that dream.]

Conclusion of Speech

I. Whenever your retirement will be, starting to save now will have enormous benefits in the long run.

1. So do not start next year, do not start next month, start now.