Amid a bleak market and skyrocketing inflation, Malvern’s Vanguard has some surprising data. Despite the uncertainty of the U.S. economy, Americans still invested in their retirement funds, and kept or increased their savings rate in 2022, writes Anne Tergesen for The Wall Street Journal. 

Vanguard’s head of strategic retirement consulting pointed out that those who had 401K accounts resisted the urge to sell their assets and continued piling funds into the accounts. As for Vanguard-specific retirement plans, people held 74 percent of their assets in stocks.

A lot of these smart decisions are made in part thanks to automatic features of the savings plans. Of the 1,700 that use Vanguard services, many automatically increase savings rates. The rates increase by one percentage point a year.  

However, it isn’t all peachy. The Wall Street Journal cites that average balances declined by 20 percent in early withdrawals rose in 2022.  

Read more about Vanguard’s retirement plans in The Wall Street Journal.