“Premature withdrawals from retirement accounts have become America’s new piggy bank, cracked open in record amounts during lean times by people like Cindy Cromie, who needed the money to rent a U-Haul and start a new life.

“Her employer, the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, had outsourced Cromie’s medical transcription work. Cromie said the move cut her income by as much as 60 percent, at times leaving her with minimum-wage pay.

“So, last year, at age 56, she moved about 90 miles from her home in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, into her mother’s basement. To make ends meet as she moved and then quit the job, Cromie pulled out $2,767 from her retirement savings.

“’We made two trips and it just got to be real expensive,’ she said. ‘That money, it was a security that I needed.’

“Still unemployed, Cromie is trying to avoid tapping what’s left of her retirement savings — $7,000 that would be subject to taxes and a 10 percent extra penalty if she touches it in the next two to three years, before she turns 59 1/2.

“It’s a small number that’s part of a much larger picture: The Internal Revenue Service collected $5.7 billion in 2011 from penalties, meaning that Americans took out about $57 billion from retirement funds before they were supposed to.”

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