Since the stock market crashed last September, American workers have seen the value of their 401(k) retirement accounts plunge dramatically. Some of that value has been recouped as the market began to bounce back in recent months, and economists predict that recovery will continue.

But there's another problem waiting in the wings. Hundreds of U.S. companies battered by the recession have reduced or eliminated their contributions to employee 401(k) funds.

While some say they hope to restore those cuts as the economy improves, others say they have no plans to bring back those benefits, leaving workers to shoulder even more of the burden of their own retirement security.

"Workers were basically hit with a double whammy," said Nancy Hwa, a spokeswoman for the Pension Rights Center, a nonprofit consumer watchdog based in Washington, D.C. "Not only did their account balances take a hit when the stock market tanked, but now they're not getting a company match, either."

The 401(k) plan has largely replaced the company-funded pension as the primary retirement account for private sector employees. Named for the relevant section of the U.S. tax code, a 401(k) plan allows workers to direct a percentage of their pretax income into an investment account, usually a mix of stock and bond mutual funds.

At retirement, the employee can begin withdrawing those contributions, along with any investment earnings that have accrued over the years.

Most 401(k) plans are employer-sponsored, and many companies traditionally have matched all or part of employee contributions. Some have contributed directly to worker 401(k)s as a form of profit sharing.

It was supposed to be the new social contract. Now that employees could no longer expect a company pension to make their golden years comfortable - the reward for a lifetime of hard work - employers would at least help them save for retirement by kicking into their 401(k) accounts so they'd have something beyond a Social Security check.

But the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is sorely testing that arrangement.

A recent survey of 175 U.S. companies by Watson Wyatt, a global employee benefits advisory firm, found that 22 percent had reduced or eliminated their 401(k) contributions. About half those firms say they hope to resume contributions in the next six months, but not all will restore them to prerecession levels. And over the next three to five years, 11 percent of respondents said they intend to reduce their contributions.

Not only that, but the recession is taking another kind of toll on retirement savings. In the Watson Wyatt survey, 37 percent of companies reported an increase in the number of workers taking loans on their 401(k) plans, while 36 percent had seen an uptick in hardship withdrawals.

According to Alan Glickstein, a senior retirement consultant with Watson Wyatt, the recession has thrown the contrast between pensions and 401(k)s into stark relief.

"We are in uncharted territory. The 401(k) plan has been around for less than 30 years, and we've not yet had a generation of workers retire on all or mostly 401(k) assets," Glickstein said in a statement assessing last fall's market crash. "What happens when market volatility makes 401(k) investment returns and retirement income anything but predictable?"

It's impossible to know just how many companies have reduced or eliminated their 401(k) match, because there's no legal requirement to notify the government of such a move. But based on public announcements and published reports, the Pension Rights Center has compiled a list of 296 companies that have cut back contributions.

The list includes several major mid-valley employers, most notably Hewlett-Packard, Weyerhaeuser and Lee Enterprises, the corporate parent of the Corvallis Gazette-Times, Albany

Democrat-Herald and Lebanon Express newspapers.

And while many companies are promising to restore contributions, so far only two firms on the center's list have set a definite date for doing so. Hwa sees the reductions as a troubling extension of the trend away from employer-supported retirement plans.

"It was really the traditional defined-benefit pension plans that fostered a middle class in this country. … It used to be as much a part of your employment contract as your weekly salary," Hwa said.

"The 401(k) match is really the last vestige of any kind of employer contribution to the retirement of their workers."

Local financial planners say 401(k) losses, whether from plummeting market values or disappearing company contributions, should be a wake-up call to workers.

"It's becoming more the responsibility of the individual, and that in itself is a scary proposition," said Megan Schneider of Hurley Financial Group in Corvallis, who works primarily with current and former HP employees.

"The 401(k) concept was a good one, and it was much better with the employer match - unfortunately, that's gone away."

Gregory Krpalek of Krpalek Financial Services in Albany predicts that many of the companies that have cut 401(k) contributions to weather the recession will restore those perks when business bounces back. And he points out that the most productive workers may be inclined to vote with their feet if they feel the boss isn't treating them right.

"To be competitive, they're going to have to offer those benefits," Krpalek said. "If they don't, employees are going to go elsewhere."

And no matter how generous the benefit package at work, John Turman of Turman Financial Group in Corvallis tells people they should never assume the gravy train will last forever.

"You can do what's always been a good idea and that's to be as self-reliant as possible," Turman said, "because anything somebody else gives you is something they can take away."

All three agree that it's vital for workers to sock away as much money as possible for retirement. Even without a company match, they say, a 401(k) plan is a good investment vehicle, but it's hardly the only one available.

Other investments to consider include an individual retirement account, a Roth IRA, mutual funds, annuities and municipal bonds.

Hwa agrees that saving for retirement is important. But she thinks employers need to carry some of the load.

"People are saving more, apparently, but is that going to be enough for retirement? We don't think so," Hwa said.

Right now, she noted, the median retirement account balance for workers in the private sector is just $25,000 - and only 55 percent of private-sector employees are even offered a retirement plan.

"We think there needs to be a new system, something that would have participation by both employers and employees," Hwa said. "We think it's necessary to keep people out of poverty."

She's not exactly sure what such a system would look like, Hwa admits, but she has some ideas about the general outlines. The Pension Rights Center has signed onto an initiative called Retirement USA that would combine features of 401(k) plans and traditional pensions and would involve contributions from workers, companies and the government.

And in the meantime, Hwa says, people who have lost a company match for their 401(k) accounts need to keep the pressure on their employer to restore those contributions as soon as possible.

"That's something workers should be paying attention to in the workplace," Hwa said. "If they see their company doing better businesswise, they should be asking when that match will be restored."