Pulling money out of a 401(k) during a market drop feels like self-preservation, but Suze Orman, personal finance expert and host of the Women & Money podcast, calls it by a blunter name: the single biggest mistake a retirement saver can make.
Fidelity Investments’ second-quarter 2026 retirement analysis, covering 25.8 million participants across 27,300 workplace plans, showed what that habit was worth.
Average 401(k) balances surged to all-time highs on a 10.5% quarterly jump that pushed the millionaire count to a record 769,000, the strongest growth since the fourth quarter of 2020, PlanAdviser reported.
The workers who captured that surge shared one trait: They kept contributing through the first quarter’s volatility instead of pulling out.
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Consistent savers captured the rebound that panic sellers forfeited
Average 401(k) balances dropped to $141,000 during the first quarter of 2026 as market volatility weighed on account values, Fidelity’s first-quarter analysis reported. Those same balances surged to $155,800 three months later, a $14,800 per-account swing that workers who moved to cash did not capture, the Q2 analysis showed.
The total average savings rate held at 14.4% for the second consecutive quarter, combining a record 9.6% employee contribution with an average 4.8% employer match, according to the Q2 analysis.
Mike Shamrell, vice president of workplace thought leadership at Fidelity Investments, told CBS News that consistent saving behavior defined 2026 despite sharp market swings.
<strong>We’re really encouraged because, despite a lot of the things that have happened throughout 2026, we’re seeing consistent savings rates. We’re not seeing people pull back on how much they’re contributing to their 401(k)s</strong>.
Hardship withdrawals rose to 3% of participants in the second quarter, up from 2.6% a year earlier, International Business Times reported. The increase came even as contribution rates held steady, a split that mirrors the divide Orman described on her podcast.
The 401(k) millionaire profile comes down to the savings rate Orman targeted
Fidelity’s typical 401(k) millionaire was about 58 years old and had contributed to a workplace plan for 25 years, Money reported. The average individual savings rate among the millionaires was 17.3%, rising to 25.8% when employer contributions were included, The Wealth Advisor noted.
About 81.2% of all participants contributed enough to capture their full employer match during the second quarter, and another 12.1% increased their contribution rate, the Fidelity analysis found.
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Orman argued during her May 3, 2026, episode that allowing fear to drive portfolio decisions, whether by pausing contributions or selling during a downturn, compounds the damage over the years. She cited long-term market data showing that the S&P 500 posted positive total returns in 32 of the last 40 years.
“The biggest mistake you will ever make, and you probably are making it, or you have made it, is when, in fact, you stop investing. You sell, you get out. You let fear dictate the moves that you make,” Orman said on her podcast.
Fidelity’s data lines up with that warning. The 401(k) millionaires averaged 25 years of uninterrupted contributions, showing what staying invested produces over a full career, the analysis showed.
What sets the 769,000 millionaires apart from the rest of the data
Generation X accounted for 62% of the growing millionaire cohort, with baby boomers at 31% and Millennials at about 6%, the analysis found. The generational skew shows the millionaire threshold comes down to time in the market, not timing.
Sharon Brovelli, president of workplace investing at Fidelity Investments, said the combination of record account balances, strong savings behaviors, and effective plan design “tell an encouraging story about how Americans are approaching retirement,” PlanAdviser reported.
The Q2 analysis pointed to two benchmarks within every worker’s control: contributing enough of each paycheck to capture the full employer match, and using automatic escalation to raise that rate toward the 15% combined savings target.
The 11.4-percentage-point gap between the average participant’s 14.4% combined rate and Fidelity’s millionaires’ 25.8% is the margin separating the two groups, the data showed.
Orman’s warning and Fidelity’s benchmarks point to the same habit
Orman’s podcast zeroed in on the behavioral side, the impulse to stop investing when markets drop, and Fidelity’s data measures the financial cost of giving in to that impulse. The Q1-to-Q2 swing showed the short-term price, and Fidelity’s millionaires showed the long-term one.
Fidelity’s benchmarks give that warning specific targets: contribute enough to capture the full employer match, and let automatic escalation push the combined rate toward 15%, the Q2 analysis recommended. Workers who hit those marks are building the same profile that defines Fidelity’s 401(k) millionaires.
Orman and Fidelity both point to the same conclusion. The savings rate a worker maintains through a downturn matters more than the downturn itself.
Related: Fidelity uncovers striking shift in 401(k) balances
