WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans' retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months -- about 20 percent of their value -- Congress' top budget analyst estimated Tuesday as lawmakers began investigating how turmoil in the financial industry is whittling away workers' nest eggs.

The upheaval that has engulfed financial firms and sent the stock market plummeting is also devastating people's savings, forcing families to hold off on major purchases and even delay retirement, Peter Orszag, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, told the House Education and Labor Committee.

As Congress investigates the causes and effects of the meltdown, the panel pressed economists and other analysts on how the housing, credit and other financial troubles have battered pensions and other retirement funds, which are among the most common forms of savings in the United States.

"Unlike Wall Street executives, America's families don't have a golden parachute to fall back on," said Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the panel chairman. "It's clear that their retirement security may be one of the greatest casualties of this financial crisis."

More than half the people surveyed in an Associated Press-GfK poll taken Sept. 27-30 said they worry they will have to work longer because the value of their retirement savings has declined.

Orszag indicated the fear is well-founded. Public and private pension funds and employees' private retirement savings accounts -- like 401(k)'s -- lost about 10 percent between the middle of 2007 and the

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- Alcoa Inc., one of the world's largest aluminum producers, on Tuesday reported a 52-percent drop in third quarter profit and said it would conserve cash by suspending its stock buyback program and all non-critical capital projects.

Alcoa, the first component of the Dow Jones industrial average to report earnings, said results were hurt by sharply lower aluminum prices, weaker demand and a charge from curtailing production at a Texas smelter.

As a global economic slowdown crimps demand for virtually every commodity, aluminum prices have dropped 32 percent from an all-time high of high on July 11. They're now trading about $2,250 per metric ton, down from about $3,380 at their peak. Copper, lead, nickel and other metals have also tumbled sharply.

The company, which manufactures aluminum and uses it to make everything from car wheels to jet wing parts, reported earnings of $268 million, or 33 cents per share, for the three months ended Sept. 30. That compared with $555 million, or 63 cents per share, during the same period last year. The latest quarter included a charge of 4 cents per share for the smelter curtailment in Rockdale, Texas, which involved about 660 layoffs.

Shares of Alcoa fell about 56 cents, or 3.4 percent, to $16.15 in after-hours trading on Tuesday. During the third quarter, they slid 34 percent.

Revenue edged down 2 percent to $7.23 billion from $7.39 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Financial, on average, expected profit of 50 cents per share on revenue of

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Frantically trying to stop the bleeding on Wall Street, the Federal Reserve took a first-time step Tuesday to get cash directly to businesses and hinted that interest rates could come down soon. Stocks continued their free fall anyway and hit new five-year lows.

The central bank invoked emergency powers to lend money to companies outside the financial sector and buy up mounds of commercial paper, the short-term debt that firms use to pay for everyday expenses like salaries and supplies.

The Fed, which has only loaned money to banks before, made the move as the gravest financial crisis in decades wore on and concern spread around the world.

In a speech to the National Association for Business Economics, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered a strong signal interest rates may need to be cut. And he warned the country could be stuck in the economic doldrums for some time.

"The outlook for economic growth has worsened," Bernanke said. "The heightened financial turmoil that we have experienced of late may well lengthen the period of weak economic performance."

The gloomy assessment appeared to open the door wider to an interest rate cut on or before the Fed convenes again Oct. 28. The Fed's key interest rate now stands at 2 percent.

Wall Street turned its back. The Dow Jones industrials lost 508 points, more than 5 percent, to close at 9,447, the lowest since Sept. 30, 2003. The Standard & Poor's 500, a broader stock index, closed below

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned Tuesday that the financial crisis has not only darkened the country's current economic performance but also could prolong the pain.

The Fed chief's more gloomy assessment appeared to open the door wider to an interest rate cut on or before Oct. 28-29, the central bank's next meeting, to brace the wobbly economy.

Bernanke said the Fed will "need to consider" whether its current stance of holding rates steady "remains appropriate" given the fallout from the worst financial crisis in decades.

If the Fed does lower its key rate from 2 percent it would mark an about-face. The Fed in June had halted an aggressive rate-cutting campaign to revive the economy out of fear those low rates would aggravate inflation. Since then, financial and economic conditions have deteriorated, while record-high energy prices have calmed, giving the Fed more leeway to again cut rates.

Many believe the country is on the brink of, or already in, its first recession since 2001.

"The outlook for economic growth has worsened," Bernanke said told the annual meeting here of the National Association for Business Economics.

All told, economic activity is likely to be "subdued" during the remainder of this year and into next year, Bernanke said. "The heightened financial turmoil that we have experienced of late may well lengthen the