As the stock market continues to roller-coaster, credit tightens and unemployment rises, investors are starting to cash out their 401(k) accounts, The Wall Street Journal reported.

T. Rowe Price Group Inc. said hardship withdrawals, removing cash from a 401(k) with a 10 percent penalty for emergencies such as job loss, foreclosure of a home or a big medical expense, rose 14 percent in the first eight months of the year, compared with the year-ago period. Fidelity Investments says the number of workers making hardship withdrawals rose 7 percent in April through June, compared with the year-ago period, and Principal Financial Group Inc. said requests for hardship withdrawals are up 5 percent this year through Sept. 18 and that the withdrawal amounts are larger.

As traditional pensions decline, 401(k)s have become the main source of retirement savings for about 60 percent of U.S. workers in the private sector. Yet a survey of nearly 1,000 U.S. employees by Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies to be released this month found that full-time workers now worry more about meeting day-to-day expenses than saving for retirement, a switch from a year ago.