Susan Tompor, Detroit Free Press
9 min read
Retirement savers have faced plenty of white knuckle days in 2025 where stock market conditions — and on-again, pause-again tariffs — put everyone's nerves on edge.
Amazingly, no matter how awful things felt some days, many have not seen a double-digit fallout in their 401(k) savings in the first quarter, according to the latest data from Fidelity Investments.
Average 401(k) retirement account balances fell 3% from late last year through the first three months this year to $127,100. Savers still saw a 1% gain in balances from the first quarter a year ago, according to Fidelity Investment data.
It wasn't as easy to become a millionaire during the first quarter's rough ride. Fidelity reported that 512,000 savers were 401(k)-created millionaires in the first quarter, down about 4.6% from 537,000 in the fourth quarter of 2024. These savers had at least $1 million in their retirement account.
Fidelity saw a record number of 401k-created millionaires in the third quarter last year at 544,000 savers.
Fidelity Investment's 401(k) data is based on 25,300 defined contribution plans at various companies across the country. The plans covered 24.4 million participants as of March 31.
What a difference a few months of economic uncertainty makes.
We had a good, set-it-and-forget-it kind of a year in 2024. At the end of last year, retirement savers saw average 401(k) balances go up 11% from the start of the year, according to Fidelity's data.
Even seeing a 3% decline in the first quarter this year could be unsettling for some savers, considering that 401(k) savers only saw a slight 0.5% dip on average from the third quarter through the fourth quarter last year.
You would have to go back about two years to the third quarter of 2023 to see a drop of 4% in average retirement savings from the second quarter that year.
So far, it has been one incredibly weird kind of a year with some miserable declines and some miraculous rebounds.
Fortunately, many investors are no longer dealing with the 15% year-to-date decline that we saw as of April 8 for the Standard & Poor's 500 index.
"If one 'took a nap' on Jan. 19 and didn’t wake up until May 31, they would have conjectured that the markets had been relatively calm," said Robert Bilkie, CEO of Sigma Investment Counselors in Northville.
The S&P 500 index was up 0.92% year to date through June 2 when the S&P 500 closed at 5,935.94 points. The total year-to-date return — including dividends — was 1.49% through the market close June 2. The total return was 25.02% in 2023 and up 26.29% in 2025.
