US Retirement Age getting Older and Older

Steven Greenhouse, a New York Times reporter, published a very provocative article on March12, 2013, detailing how US citizens are delaying retirement until older and older ages.

Why?  Greenhouse says that some "older persons" still feel young and want to work or devote themselves to a new project or compelling interest. Others stay on the job, worried that they may have serious medical bills in the future, and seek additonal resources in the event that Social Security and Medicare prove insufficient.

Another group thinks that their savings are inadequate or anticipate having to support their parents in their old age, thus reducing resources for adult children.  Costs of higher education for children has increased  drastically over the past decades and pulled down their savings. Some potential retirees have helped their own parents to live in a nursing home and thereby reduced their personal savings for retirement.  Still others have footed the bill to send children to college, depleting their "retirement savings."     
  

What is happening now?  Many more older US citizens are living into their late 80s and 90s and outliving their retirement savings.  What does this mean?     

      

Greenhouse cites a Boston College study that found that "53 percent of Americans were 'at risk' of being unable to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living once they retire, up from 30 percent in 1989. A study last May by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found that 44 percent may not have enough money to meet their basic needs in retirement."

        

Today, one-third of retirees in the United States rely solely on Social Security, with benefits averaging just over $15,000 a year for an individual and $30,000 for a couple.  Can you live on this income? It can't be easy.

      

A generation ago, most workers with employer-based retirement plans were enrolled in traditional pension plans promising a monthly stipend for life after retirement.  But that's changed drastically.  The BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) data shows that only a quarter of all workers now enjoy a "traditional pension plan."  Only 26 percent of all workers are in such pension plans, including 17 percent of private-sector workers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Most people whose employers do offer retirement plans are enrolled in 401(k)’s instead, and 58 percent of workers are not participating in an employer-based retirement plan, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

 

What's the future of those who will "come of old age" in the years and decades ahead?  Will we/they live in poverty and misery with fore-shortened lives?  Will the US economic system support or sustain its elder citizens?  Or will the 1% who control so much US wealth today ignore their fellow citizens?  What do you think?  Please share your views in our comments section.

 

Susanne Paul for Global Action on Aging