<prompt> Human: There HAS to be a fairly sizable population of people who HAVE jobs, but dont have employer sponsored 401ks. Thats 17.5Kyear!  <response>: 1. Because companies lobby a lot and normal people dont, so companies get benefits that you wouldnt have if you left. 2. At the time the 401k was invented in the 70s, brokers did not market to normal people as competitively as they did today. Until rather recently, the overhead or having a 401k was hard even for small companies. There was some hope that this would be a good way to 3. Write your congresscritter and suggest that the total limit should not care about how you get it in. If you have no 401k or dont want to use your 401k, you should be able to have the same contribution to an IRA. Currently, if you work for terrible company, you can contribute 5.5k a year depending on income. If you work for a good one, you can contribute 17.55.523k. If you work for a great one, you can contribute 57k, with a big part of it being your company contributing. Thats absurd. 