Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks on stage during the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Convention on August 28, 2024 in Boston, Massachusetts.
If you're considering a political candidate, it makes sense to examine their record on fiscal issues and how their policies have affected their constituents' finances. But what about the candidate's personal finances?
Such are the conversations surrounding Minnesota governor and vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz. Walz and his wife Gwen earned about $300,000 in 2023, according to documents shared with the Wall Street Journal. His Republican rival, Senator J.D. Vance, disclosed 2022 income between $1.2 and $1.3 million.
Even more interestingly, Walz told the Journal that he made a roughly $135,000 early withdrawal from a workplace retirement account last year to fund his daughter's college education. It's a move that financial advisors would tend to steer most clients away from.
"Most of the time, it's not advisable," says Gerika Espinosa, a certified financial planner with DMBA in Salt Lake City, Utah. "Because people are doing it at the expense of their own retirement and then their retirement suffers. And then it's kind of a lose-lose situation."
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Walz is in an unusual situation
For Walz, $135,000 represents a relatively small chunk of what he can expect to earn in retirement. The Wall Street Journal estimates the Walzes' retirement savings at more than $1 million, meaning that the early withdrawal likely represented somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% of the retirement fund.
What's more, Walz's situation is a little different than most Americans'. He can expect ample pension income in retirement thanks to his years working as a teacher, national guardsman and politician — some of which he's already collecting. Of Walz and his wife's roughly $300,000 in 2023 income, about $135,000 came from pensions or annuities.
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Walz's work history means that his retirement picture looks like a bit of a throwback, says Jamie Bosse, a certified financial planner and senior advisor at CGN Advisors in Manhattan Kansas.
"When I first got into financial planning, they taught us that retirement spending was a three-legged stool. You could rely on pensions, Social Security and your personal savings," she says.
Nowadays, with many pension plans frozen or eliminated and worries mounting about the future stability of Social Security, "that stool is really like a pogo stick," says Bosse. "Now more than ever, your future financial independence is directly related to your ability to save a portion of your income for retirement."
In other words, Walz's move isn't ideal for anybody. But it's especially dangerous for the majority of Americans who will have to rely heavily on their investments to fund their retirement.
Why it's best to avoid early withdrawals
For most people, an early withdrawal from a retirement plan is a risky move. For one, anything that you withdraw from a retirement account is money that doesn't get a chance to grow at a compounding rate. Whether it represented a big portion of the Walzes' income or not, that $135,000 is money that isn't working for their retirement.
"Taking money out of your retirement accounts to use for something else means, by definition, that money won't be available for retirement," says Yusuf Abugideiri, a CFP and chief investment officer at Yeske Buie in Vienna, Virginia. "You're putting yourself in a really challenging position in most cases."
What's more, taking money from a retirement account is expensive. Money you withdraw from a 401(k)-type account is taxed as regular income. Plus, take the money out before age 59½, and you'll generally incur a tax penalty on whatever you withdraw.
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A withdrawal may seem worth it to fund something like a child's education — which can seem like a much more pressing need than retirement, says Bosse. But it's a move that severely limits your financial flexibility, she says.
"The reality is, there are options for paying for college. The student can work. There's a lot of colleges that offer tuition aid if you work for the college. There are work study programs. There are loans," she says. "There's not as many options when you're retired and you run out of money. You can't get a loan for retirement."
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