Unlike a personal or 401(k) loan, you don't need to repay the funds. According to Vanguard's "How America Saves 2024" report, more people took out hardship withdrawals in 2023 than in 2022.

During the last 12 months, 401(k) hardship withdrawals rose by 24%, according to a 2022 study by Empower, a large retirement plan administrator. The funds were used to cover unexpected financial ...

And unfortunately, some 401(k) plan custodians don’t even allow hardship withdrawals from your plan. Plus, you’ll end up paying taxes and possibly IRS penalties to access your funds ...

The employee retirement programs analyzed in the ... annual increase over the 2.2% of participants who took hardship distributions in Q2 2022. Finally, BoA's data shows that average quarterly ...