Well first, don't be shocked. I didn't say "most people in America" can max out their 401k plan. I said most (if not all) PILOTS at major airlines can max out their plans. And as well they should. What else I said, was that there are lots of companies whose employees are able to do the same, and that's true. You know, tech companies, energy, financials, etc. Not necessarily most Americans.
I guess I wasn't clear the first time. The difference between SWAPA's 401k and the rest of Southwest employees' 401k is much more than simply segregating the pilots' money. They are actually completely different plans. They're as different as IBM's plan vs. Yahoo's plan. They're run by different managers at different investment companies, they have different investment choices, etc. Plus, the pilot 401k plan allows you to designate a portion of the investment as a brokerage account for trade of individual securities if desired. The guys who run it for SWAPA are very smart indeed, and do a better job as a whole, apparently, than other plans' guys.
As you say, amount of money per participant may be a determining factor, but it's certainly not the only one, or necessarily the main one. If it was, our plan wouldn't be #1. There's high-earner companies with better company matches than ours. The report weighs some 200 criteria (so says the article), and even mentions that a lot of different things are considered:
"You'll find tremendous variation in key success factors, including plan cost, employer generosity and the quality of investment choices."
Keep in mind that Brightscope's work was in determining the relative quality of each group's plan, not just measuring the size. If that was the case, you wouldn't need Brightscope's research to rank them, just a calculator.
Bubba
