PROFESSOR PRINCE RECENTLY QUOTED ON TRUMP TARIFF IMPACTS ON 401(k) RETIREMENT PLANS IN GERMANY NEWS, FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE
April 2025 — Professor Samantha Prince was recently interviewed for background information and quoted in the FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE news article, “Trump schürt Rentenpanik” (translation: “Trump is Fueling Pension Panic”). She was referred to as “a professor specializing in retirement savings.”
The article, written by Roland Lindner, explains to its readership in Germany, how 401(k) plans work in the United States (they rely on pensions in Germany). It further covers the stress that the Trump tariff policy is causing for retirees. “The people who have had the most reason to panic in recent days have been people who are already retired. It is particularly painful for them when the value of the savings plan suddenly shrinks significantly because they no longer pay in but only withdraw.”
While many people are posting on social media about their 401(k) plan account values plummeting, Treasury Secretary Bessent appeared to be downplaying the impact on people’s retirement savings. When asked by Lindner what Prince thought about Bessent’s statement that people don’t look at their 401(k) balances during fluctuations, she was quoted as saying “I think he lives in a bit of a privileged bubble.”
While the article was written in German, Professor Prince has an English translation available for anyone interested.
Professor Samantha Prince is an Associate Professor of Law and Director of Legal Analysis & Writing at Dickinson Law. She has a Master of Laws in Taxation from Georgetown University Law Center and was a partner in a regional law firm where she handled transactional matters that ranged from an initial public offering to regular representation of a publicly-traded company. A significant part of her practice was in employee benefits including retirement plan design and operation. Her expertise from practice has fueled her research enabling her to become an expert on 401(k) vesting schedules, employee benefits transparency, and gig work. In practice, most of her clients were small to medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs, including start-ups. Professor Prince brought her practice knowledge to the law school and established the Dickinson Law entrepreneurship program. She is an advisor for the Entrepreneurship Law Certificate that is available to students and is the founder and moderator of the Inside Entrepreneurship Law blog.