Thanksgiving Day Deals Trump Black Friday This Year

NEW YORK (AP) — Thanksgiving could be the best day to shop all year.

An analysis of sales data and store circulars by two research firms contradicts conventional wisdom that Black Friday is when shoppers can get the most and biggest sales of the year.

Turns out, shoppers will find more discounted items in stores that are open on Thanksgiving. For example, there are a total of 86 laptops and tablets deeply discounted as door buster deals at Best Buy, Wal-Mart and others on the holiday compared with just nine on Black Friday, according to an analysis of promotions for The Associated Press by researcher MarketTrack.

And on the Web, discounts will be deeper on the holiday. Online prices on Thanksgiving are expected to be about 24 percent cheaper compared with 23 percent on Black Friday and 20 percent on Cyber Monday, according to Adobe, which tracks data on 4,500 retail web sites.

The data is the latest proof that retailers are slowly redefining the Black Friday tradition. It's been the biggest shopping day of the year for years, mostly because it's traditionally when retailers pull out their best sales events. But in the last few years, retailers like the Gap, Target and Toys R Us have started opening their stores and offering holiday discounts on Thanksgiving to better compete with online rivals.

"I was surprised, but it really shifted one day," said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst at Adobe, which is based in San Jose, California.

Shoppers already are noticing the deals on Thanksgiving. Corey Grassell, 34, of Appleton, Wisconsin, said he plans to shop for deals on Thanksgiving and bypass Black Friday. That's after he grabbed bargains last year on the holiday, including a washer-dryer combination at Sears for about $800, a 50 percent discount.

"I feel guilty for going out on Thanksgiving, but the deals are so much more attractive to me than on Black Friday," he says.

But some industry watchers fear others won't shop on Thanksgiving, choosing to keep the day sacred. Those who wait instead to shop on Black Friday could wind up being disappointed with the leftover deals, they say. In fact, according to Deloitte Research's recent survey of shoppers, about two-thirds say they're not motivated to go out to stores Thanksgiving because it's important to be with family and friends.

"Shoppers could be disappointed and find that the hot items on their list are not in stock on Black Friday because of the early push by retailers," says Traci Gregorski, MarketTrack's vice president of marketing.

She says she's conducting a survey of shoppers after the holiday shopping weekend to see how retailers fared. "We want to get shoppers' perception of these deals," she says.

Most big retailers acknowledge that they're starting to offer deals on Thanksgiving that previously were reserved for Black Friday.

Jeff Haydock, a spokesman at Best Buy, the nation's largest consumer electronics chain, said the best deals become available Thanksgiving when its doors open at 5 p.m. For example, one of Best Buy's Thanksgiving specials is a $899 55-inch LED Smart TV, the lowest price it has ever offered on a Samsung ultra-high definition TV of this size. That will be available on Friday —if supplies last.

"Naturally, more of the deals are being pulled into Thursday because our stores are open," says Haydock.

Brian Hanover, a spokesman at Sears, which is opening at 6 p.m. Thursday, also says Thanksgiving specials spill into Black Friday. But the quantities for the 1,000 door busters are limited. They include Nordic Track treadmills for $699.99, or an $800 discount, and a 36 percent savings on a Whirlpool laundry machine, regularly priced at $549.99.

"It probably behooves the customer to shop earlier on Thanksgiving," he says.

For its part, Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, says it's spreading out discounts online and in the store. But Gregorski, of MarketTrack's says its "evident" in Wal-Mart's circular that "the best deals are on Thanksgiving."

To be sure, for its two sales events on Thanksgiving, Wal-Mart devotes 36 pages of its circular to discounted TVs, computers and other items. On Black Friday? Wal-Mart has four pages of deals.

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Follow Anne D'Innocenzio at — https://twitter.com/adinnocenzio

Six Years Later, Walmart Still Hasn't Paid A $7,000 Fine For Black Friday Worker's Death

WASHINGTON -- This coming Black Friday will mark six years since a worker died beneath a throng of shoppers at a Walmart on Long Island. Although federal regulators faulted the retail giant in the tragedy, Walmart still hasn’t been compelled to pay the modest $7,000 fine that was levied against it.

The case, Department of Labor v. Walmart Stores, has not moved forward since HuffPost reported on it a year ago -- on appeal with a federal review commission that handles workplace safety fines. As of this writing, the commission lists the status of the case as “pending review.”

The case was first referred to the commission three and a half years ago. A spokeswoman for the commission said it does not comment on the timeline for pending cases.

It’s common for employers to appeal whatever penalties the Labor Department’s safety inspectors issue against them, including when workers are killed on the job. But the case of 34-year-old Jdimytai Damour, who had worked at Walmart for only a week when he was asphyxiated beneath the Black Friday crowd, underscores just how long those appeals can drag on, even in cases where the fines are comparably small.

Brooke Buchanan, a Walmart spokeswoman, said the retailer has made significant changes in recent years to minimize the frenzy among shoppers and make for a safer atmosphere, including spreading out merchandise that's on special and staggering sales times.

"After this horrible incident that happened six years ago, we took major steps working with crowd experts, law enforcement and people who do this for a living to see and help set up our stores," Buchanan said.

As HuffPost previously reported, Walmart, which had net sales of $473 billion last fiscal year, probably isn’t disputing the penalty in order to save $7,000, the maximum amount the Occupational Safety and Health Administration can fine a company for serious violations. Indeed, the company has already spent millions of dollars in legal costs just to fight the case. For Walmart, more significant than the nominal fine itself would be the ramifications if the fine were upheld.

OSHA used what’s known as the general duty clause as the foundation for its fine against Walmart. The clause holds that employers have a basic responsibility to provide a workplace that’s “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to [their] employees.”

In essence, the agency argues that Walmart should have foreseen the dangers presented by a mass of excited shoppers waiting at the store’s doors. An administrative law judge agreed back in 2011, though Walmart appealed that decision to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission, where cases often wait years for review.

OSHA regulations tend to be very specific, and the agency doesn’t often reach for the general duty clause because it isn’t so easy to prove what should be a “recognizable” hazard. Employers, unsurprisingly, often criticize citations using the general duty clause as too vague. That's what happened when OSHA cited a poultry processor recently for violating the clause and putting workers in danger of ergonomic hazards. Before that, OSHA hadn’t tried to wield the clause in such a case in more than a decade.

In the Black Friday case, Walmart would be more eager to defeat OSHA's arguments than to avoid the $7,000 penalty. The company has argued that the dangers on Black Friday could not have been predicted. If regulators ultimately succeed in their case, OSHA would theoretically have an easier time putting Walmart and other retailers on the hook for Black Friday disasters in the future.

In a deal to avoid prosecution, Walmart agreed to develop a new crowd control plan the year after Damour's death. For its part, OSHA has started issuing guidance each year on how stores can handle their sales events safely. The agency recently sent letters to the major retailers urging them to adopt their own plans ahead of Black Friday.

“Retail workers should not be put at risk,” David Michaels, the head of OSHA, said last week.

You're More Likely To Inherit Your Dad's Social Status Than His Height

Social mobility is a myth.

That is the depressing conclusion -- or, if you're already part of the social elite, the great news -- of a new study by economists Gregory Clark of the University of California, Davis, and Neil Cummins of the London School of Economics. The hope that we can claw our way up from our low station to someplace fancier is a delusion for most of us, according to this study. We inherit social status from our parents just as much as, if not more than, our physical traits.

And this social status often persists across many, many generations. The title of the study -- "Surnames and Social Mobility in England, 1170–2012" -- gives you some idea of just how many generations we're talking about here: 28 generations of 30 years each. The study looked at centuries of data on the social statuses of English families. It found that many of the families who were socially elite landowners in 1170 -- your Montgomerys, Nevilles, and Percys -- were still socially elite in 2012.

"Strong forces of familial culture, social connections, and genetics must connect the generations," the authors wrote. "There really are quasi-physical 'Laws of Inheritance.'"

The study used attendance at Oxford and Cambridge Universities ("Oxbridge") as a proxy for high social status; typically only elite students go to those schools. Across generations, the "correlation coefficient" -- a number that shows the strength of the correlation between two things, with a 0 meaning not correlated at all and 1 meaning perfect positive correlation -- was between 0.7 and 0.9 for generations of the same family going to Oxbridge. In comparison, the correlation coefficient for height between generations is just 0.64, according to one study cited by the researchers.

Hang on, you might be saying, isn't England notorious for low social mobility? Isn't it the land of Downton Abbey-style snooty inherited wealth? Sure. But guess what? The United States is really not much better. A 2013 study by Miles Corak of the University of Ottawa found that the U.K. and U.S. were two of the least socially mobile countries in the developed world. Here's a chart that puts this in perspective:

Note that, according to Corak's study, low levels of social mobility -- meaning it's hard to move from one social level to a higher one -- are also associated with high levels of income inequality.

This is the kind of world that French economist Thomas Piketty warns could become increasingly common -- one in which inherited wealth just keeps growing while incomes stagnate. It's the sort of the world we're living in today, come to think of it.

Most worryingly, the Clark-Cummins study found that social mobility hasn't really improved significantly in recent decades, despite social programs aimed at boosting it, such as higher tax rates on wealth and programs to help lower-class students get into Oxbridge.

Maybe we just haven't given such programs enough time to work, though. And given the many economic risks created by widening inequality, we shouldn't stop trying to boost social mobility.

Used Car Dealership Hit With $8 Million Fine For Allegedly Harassing Customers

Elizabeth Warren's brainchild watchdog agency is cracking down for the first time on a used car dealer that also acted as an auto lender for allegedly harassing customers who were late on their payments.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, conceived by Sen. Warren (D. Mass.) during the financial crisis, fined Phoenix-based DriveTime Automotive Group, Inc., the country's largest "buy here, pay here" lender, $8 million on Wednesday. As part of a settlement agreement, DriveTime and its finance company, DT Acceptance Corporation, said they would change debt collection practices.

"Buy here, pay here" auto companies sell used cars, but consumer advocates say they operate more like subprime lenders. The companies offer low-income customers with poor credit ratings auto loans with interest rates that can top 30 percent, according to a 2011 Los Angeles Times investigation.

DriveTime’s average customer has an annual income of between $37,000 and $50,000, a FICO credit score between 461 and 554 and paid an average of 19 percent in interest on their loan, according to the CFPB. (According to FICO, a credit score of 660 or higher is typically considered "good.")

People who buy cars at these types of dealerships usually return to the lot to make payments, often in cash -- hence the term “buy here, pay here.” The companies also expect some of these buyers to fall behind on their payments, consumer attorneys say, which can benefit the dealer.

“When a customer defaults, the company can repossess the car and resell it again, often numerous times,” said John Van Alst, the director of the National Consumer Law Center’s “Working Cars For Working Families” project, which advocates for policy reform and transparency in used car and car finance markets.

DriveTime would repeatedly call customers who fell behind for payments, according to the CFPB settlement. Where the company fell afoul of the law, CFPB alleged, is when it called people at work, risking them getting fired. One DriveTime customer was called 30 times at work by the company’s collectors, even after the customer had asked them to stop, according to court documents. The CFPB charged that DriveTime management actually encouraged this tactic.

“Consumers who purchase a car at a buy-here, pay-here dealer deserve to be treated fairly,” said CFPB Director Richard Cordray. “DriveTime harassed and harmed countless consumers, many of whom were economically vulnerable.”

“DriveTime strives to comply with all applicable laws and provide exemplary service to our customers,” said company general counsel and Executive Vice President Jon Ehlinger in a prepared statement. “DriveTime had taken and has continued to take steps to enhance its customer experience, and loan servicing activities, including the handling of do not call requests.”

According to the settlement, DriveTime employes 290 collectors in order to secure its owed payments.

The DriveTime agreement marks the CFPB's first action against a “buy here, pay here” company, and signals that the growing federal agency -- newly minted in 2010 as part of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law -- is watching the industry, which has ballooned in size in recent years.

The number of cars sold by “buy here, pay here” lots in the U.S. grew from 1.3 million in 2001 to 2.4 million in 2010, according to the 2011 Los Angeles Times investigation. More recent data is hard to come by. “BHPH [buy here, pay here] is a fractured industry with few large or publicly traded participants, making it difficult to estimate transaction volume,” says the website of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

“Buy here, pay here” dealers represent around 10 percent of the overall auto finance market, said Chris Kuklas of the Center For Responsible Lending, research group that fights predatory lending practices. The overall auto finance market is worth $940.9 billion, according to the Federal Reserve.

At DriveTime, where at any given moment about 45 percent of customers were delinquent on their payments, calling people at work wasn’t the only law the company broke, regulators charged.

The settlement also alleges that the company inaccurately reported its customers to credit bureaus, even when DriveTime had “reasonable cause to believe” the information it was reporting was wrong. Regulators charged that when DriveTime repossessed its customers’ cars, it told the three biggest credit bureaus in the country that the repossessions had happened more recently than they actually had.

Having a car repossession listed on your credit report dings your credit score, and can make it more difficult to find a job or be approved for a credit card or mortgage.

DriveTime took steps to improve the way it reported customers to credit bureaus both before and during the CFPB investigation, Ehlinger said. The company is “look[ing] forward” to “improving its customer service and compliance practices” in coming years, he added.

Federal authorities have recently been cracking down on the way lenders sometimes unfairly harm consumers’ credit reports. Over the summer, the CFPB fined an auto lender in Texas $2.75 million for allegedly providing inaccurate information about borrowers to credit agencies for years.

“We’re focusing on accuracy with credit reporting because credit ratings have such an impact on people’s financial well-being,” CFPB spokesman Sam Gilford told The Huffington Post on Wednesday.

Kuklas said that "buy here, pay here" companies fall under the CFPB’s authority because they are more like debt collectors than car dealers. The agency has recently tried to clamp down on the tactics debt collectors use to get people to make payments on delinquent bills.

In August, the CFPB took action against a Georgia debt collection firm that it alleged operated like a “factory” in suing hundreds of thousands of people for old debts, while spending less than a minute reviewing each lawsuit for accuracy.

One out of every three Americans has an unpaid bill “in collections,” according to a July study by the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank. Debts in collections can harm your credit score and even lead to your savings and wages getting seized.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this article stated that the number of "buy here, pay here" lots grew from 1.3 million in 2000 to 2.4 million in 2009. In reality, the number of cars sold by "buy here, pay here" lots grew from 1.3 million in 2001 to 2.4 million in 2010, according to a Los Angeles Times investigation.

Legal Pot In Washington Bringing In Even More Tax Revenue Than Predicted

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington's legal recreational marijuana market is bringing in more tax revenue to the state than originally predicted, state officials said Wednesday.

The most recent revenue forecast released by the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council shows that the industry is expected to bring in more than $694 million in state revenue through the middle of 2019. A previous forecast in September had that projection at about $636 million.

The latest report shows that nearly $43 million from a variety of marijuana-related taxes — including excise, sales, and business taxes — is expected to be collected through the middle of next year.

About $237 million is expected for the next two-year budget that ends mid-2017, and $415 million more is expected for the 2017-19 budget biennium.

The passage of Initiative 502 in 2012 allowed the sale of marijuana to adults for recreational use at licensed stores, which started opening this summer. Under the initiative, some of the tax money from the new system can be dedicated to the state general fund, while other portions are supposed to be devoted to health care, education and substance-abuse prevention.

So far, the state has issued 86 retail marijuana licenses, and 70 stores have opened. As of this week, revenue from total sales of recreational marijuana — including between producers, processers and product sold by retailers — totaled more than $40 million, with the state receiving more than $10 million in excise taxes, according to the state Liquor Control Board.

Steve Lerch, the revenue council's executive director, noted that because the industry is still new and developing, the numbers will continue to change.

"We continue to see growth in the number of producers, of processers and of retailers," Lerch said. With increasingly more access to retail marijuana, "we would expect to see some growth in those revenues," he said.

The 16 Best Black Friday Deals

This article was reported by DealNews, a site that scours the web for the best retail deals.

Now that the Black Friday ads are leaking at a steady pace, we're finally getting a clear picture of the 2014 Black Friday landscape. We've examined the advertised deals from stores like Target, Best Buy, and Walmart, and we're ready to pick some early winners. Keep in mind though that new ads will continue to trickle in, but in the meantime, here's our roundup of the top Black Friday ads so far.

The Best Black Friday Ads So Far

Panasonic 50" 1080p LED LCD HDTV for $199.99 at Best Buy
If you want to make a statement, offering a brand-name HDTV as your show-stealing doorbuster is a heck of a way to do it. This Panasonic 50" set comes in at an astonishing $99 below our Black Friday prediction for the 46" to 47" class TVs. In fact, this deal will be tied as the best price we've seen for any 50" HDTV by about $100 — including refurbs. (We've only seen a 50" TV drop this low once before, on Thanksgiving last year.) Best of all, this price outshines the leaked Black Friday prices for every other TV in this size range, including Target's incredible $235 48" set. The only drawback to this doorbuster is that you'll have to go to the store to grab it.

Asus Intel Laptop for $100 at Staples
We admit, this ad is as vague as you can get, but even without specifics it's safe to assume this laptop is housing a low-cost Intel Atom or Celeron processor. Nevertheless, as far as budget systems are concerned, this deal is poised to blow all other deals out of the water. Not only does it beat our laptop prediction for budget machines by $78, but when this deal comes to fruition, it will set a new benchmark for cheap laptops — and become the cheapest laptop in DealNews history.

Element 40" 1080p LED LCD HDTV for $119 at Target
Just when we thought 40" to 42" TV deals had plateaued, Target went and slashed the price of this 40" Element to $119. Not only does that destroy our Black Friday TV prediction for this size category by $59, but it's just $9 away from tying last year's best Black Friday price for a 32" TV. Without a doubt, this is the star of Target's Black Friday ad and easily snags a spot in our Top 10.

Vizio 65" 1080p Smart LED LCD HDTV for $648 at Walmart
Even if you don't consider Vizio to be a brand-name manufacturer, this 65" Smart TV doorbuster is spectacular. Starting at 6 pm local time, in-store shoppers can grab this set for $648, which is a whopping $102 less than the best price we've ever seen for any 65" HDTV, even refurbs. Better yet, this deal easily blows Best Buy's $800 LG TV out of the water.

Samsung 55" 4K 2160p Smart LED LCD Ultra HDTV for $899.99 at Best Buy
Remember when we said you shouldn't buy a name-brand smart TV on Black Friday? Here's the glaring exception to that rule. You don't even have to brave the in-store crowds to score this incredible Samsung 55" 4K Smart TV deal; according to the ad, this doorbuster will be available online. At $900, this set beats our August mention of a refurb, becoming the cheapest Samsung 55" 4K TV we've seen by $315.

Apple MacBook Air Haswell Core i5 11.6" Laptop for $779.99 at Best Buy
If you're shopping for a current-gen MacBook Air on Black Friday, this is definitely the deal to beat. That $780 price point not only shatters our Black Friday prediction by $19, but it blows past our previous all-time low by $70. Best of all, it knocks a delightful $120 off Apple's price.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 7" 8GB Android Tablet with $20 in SYWR points for $150 at Kmart
This is an incredible deal, bar none. First off, Kmart's ad price beats the best deal we've ever seen for this tablet by $6. Plus, the Shop Your Way Rewards credit brings this popular 7" slate to $20 below our Black Friday prediction for a small, mainstream Android tablet. Coincidentally, the credit also helps Kmart beat Sam's Club's leaked Black Friday price for this tablet.

Amazon Fire HD 6 6" 8GB WiFi Tablet with a $20 Meijer Custom Coupon for $79 at Meijer
Here's an ad that blows our Black Friday tablet predictions right out of the water. Against all odds, here's the Fire HD 6 (the bottom-tier tablet in Amazon's recently refreshed lineup), marked down by $20 with an extra $20 credit tacked on for good measure. Assuming you'll use the credit, that'll be 40% off and the very first discount we've seen on this tablet. Furthermore, Meijer's leaked price beats Kmart's by $11 once all credits are taken into account.

Apple iPhone 6 16GB Smartphone for $99 at Sam's Club
Although iPhone 6 deals have been mediocre since Apple's launch, this deal may be the one to open the floodgates. Outside of an early Walmart preorder, the 16GB iPhone 6 has not dropped below $179. This Sam's Club deal cuts the list price by 50% to just $99 (with a 2-year contract renewal), which is right on par with our iPhone prediction. Better yet, this price beats Target's iPhone 6 ad by $51. All of the Sam's Club Black Friday iPhone deals go live on November 15, so proceed with caution because other retailers may swoop in and undercut them.

Samsung Galaxy S5 16GB Android Phone for 1 cent at Target
We haven't seen a decent discount on a subsidized Samsung Galaxy S5 since August, and that one cost $100. Flash forward to Black Friday, when Target will drop this in-demand Android to just one penny (with the activation of a 2-year contract). Unless we start seeing for-profit deals, this is as good as smartphone ads get — it even beats Sam's Club's deal by about a buck.

Xbox One Halo: The Master Chief Collection Bundle with a $30 Walmart Gift Card for $329
We've seen quite a few noteworthy Xbox One bundle ads, but this one is our top pick. Although Target is offering the Assassin's Creed Unity version of this bundle paired with a $50 gift card, shoppers might think twice about dropping so much cash on a game that one critic called "my least favorite major Assassin's Creed since the 2007 original." On the other hand, this 6 pm doorbuster comes with four Halo games (as opposed to the other bundle's two), access to a beta, and more. The $30 gift card can even be used to further bulk up your Xbox One collection; Walmart will also have select Xbox One titles on sale from $20 during Black Friday.

However, if you are interested in the Target bundle, know that the heftier gift card means it's effectively $70 below our Black Friday prediction for a Kinect-less Xbox One.

Beats by Dr. Dre Solo HD On-Ear Headphones for $79.99 at Best Buy
Sorry, Target: Best Buy just became the place to buy a pair of Beats cans on Black Friday. Even we're floored by this $80 doorbuster; that ties the all-time best price we've seen for these headphones refurbished.

Apple iPad Air 2 16GB Tablet with $140 Gift Card for $499 at Target
Target is currently the king of iPad Air 2 deals bundling a very generous $140 Target gift card with the purchase of the 16GB model. That's effectively $140 off the tablet's retail price and easily trumps last Black Friday's $429 iPad Air low. If you don't want to deal with gift cards or if you just want to pay the least amount possible, Best Buy gets runner up for shaving $100 off the full cost of the iPad Air 2.

Dyson DC33 Multi-Floor Bagless Upright Vacuum for $199 at Walmart
Somewhere, a Dyson fan just fainted. We predicted that new Dysons would start at around $250, and this 6 pm doorbuster demolishes that price by $51. Furthermore, this price is $40 below our previous all-time low for a new unit.

Predator Generators 8,750W 13HP Gas Generator for $550 at Harbor Freight Tools
Power outages are probably the last thing on your mind this month, but emergency preparedness is always a good thing and this generator is $225 under the cheapest 8,000-watt generator we've seen all year. Even better, it also manages to undercut every 5,000-watt generator we've posted this year. While most experts recommend a 4,000-watt unit, at $550 you can afford to double the power. A great buy for home owners who've yet to purchase a generator.

4-Burner Gas Grill with Side Burner for $99 at Walmart
Although the summer months typically see better grill sales than Black Friday, this gas grill is a steal. At $99, it'll be tied with a May deal as the cheapest 4-burner gas grill we've seen in the past two years. Better still, this 6 pm doorbuster beats the next cheapest Black Friday gas grill by $61.

Every hour, more ads are trickling in, but the 2014 landscape is already packed with incredible offers. We hope we'll see more ads that are just as good as Staples' $100 laptop and Target's $119 TV in the coming days, but the deals above will certainly be hard to beat.

Excited for Black Friday deals? Consider subscribing to the DealNews Select Newsletter to get a daily recap of all our deals; you never know when a Black Friday price will be released! You can also download the DealNews apps, check out the latest Black Friday ads, or read more buying advice.

Americans Are Not Remotely Financially Ready For Retirement

The median American heading into retirement has just enough wealth to live on for a little more than three years, according to a new paper by the Center for Economic and Policy Research’s David Rosnick and Dean Baker.

These Americans are the first 401(k) generation: Their prime working years coincided with the 3 1/2 decades since the introduction of tax-deferred retirement accounts. And yet most of them have accumulated a relatively small amount of wealth, if any, outside of owning their home.

For Americans ages 55 to 64, net worth, the equity they own in their homes, and the value of other assets they own are each falling at precisely the time in their lives when they should be rising.

It’s a “pessimistic picture of economic progress since the end of the recession,” Rosnick and Baker write. The path of Americans’ net worth, including those about to stop working, hasn’t been a continual downward slide. In fact, Rosnick and Baker note that net worth grew significantly for more than two decades. But then, it was hit with the dual blows of a stock market and housing crash.

Net worth for the middle 20 percent of soon-to-be-retired Americans has fallen every year since 2004, and it is now just under $170,000. (The median is $165,700.) That might seem like a lot, but it’s just enough money to live at the median U.S. income of $52,000 for a little over three years. And when most of that wealth is tied up in a home, it's unclear how many of those in their upper 50s and early 60s plan to stay afloat without working or selling their home for what could easily be 20 or more years of retirement.

The poorest of the soon-to-be retirees have been hit the hardest. In comparison, the richest group is in an excellent position.

That is a chart of the wealth-destroying wrath of the housing crisis. It destroyed billions of dollars of net worth, and disproportionately hurt the poor, who are less likely to have any wealth outside their home.

Fewer Americans in the bottom 60 percent of wealth who are close to retirement own their homes than used to: In 1989, 77 percent of this group owned their homes, the researchers found. In 2013, that number was 60 percent.

And the poorer you are, the less of your home you own. This, the authors write, “implies these households will be paying off mortgages long into retirement, if they stay in their homes.”

Poorer near-retirees also own less outside of the value of their home than their wealthier counterparts:

The wealth, or absence of it, among Americans on the brink of traditional retirement age is another manifestation of a stock-market-led recovery. The stock market has boomed back from the financial crisis. Housing prices have recovered with it, but on a relatively smaller scale. Despite a more than 30-year commitment to tax-deferred personal retirement saving, stock ownership is not widely distributed across the American wealth spectrum. “House prices,” the authors write, are “a larger share of assets for the bottom three fifths of Americans.”

Recent years have shown that tying your net worth to your home’s price is, in fact, risky. Homeownership should not be a retirement plan.