(h/t to Calculated Risk)
Here’s the latest spin on Main Street’s “new normal,” from the Wall Street Journal blog, earlier tonight:
For Many Seniors, There May Be No Retirement
Rachel Louise Ensign
WSJ.com
August 20, 2011
When Angela Gregor's mother became ill and needed long-term care in the 1990s, Ms. Gregor tapped her individual retirement account for funds and stopped making contributions. Then came the tumultuous stock-market ups and downs of the past decade, dealing the IRA another blow.
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(continued from above the fold)
To make ends meet, Ms. Gregor went back to work part time last September, as a data-entry clerk at a senior center near Chicago. The 67-year-old hopes to retire by age 70, but says she'll have a hard time doing so if she can't sell her home.
"Everything is more expensive. I cannot retire, I wish I could," says Ms. Gregor. "Like most older people, my money is in my home. ... I'm caught between a rock and a hard place."
Many older people are finding themselves in a position they never expected to be in at retirement age: still working or in need of a job.
And the laundry list of reasons just keeps growing…
From Calculated Risk, Saturday evening, citing the survey mentioned in the WSJ piece, after mentioning the harsh realities of present-day retirement planning, which include 0% interest on retirement savings and an aging U.S. population where many have lost much, if not all, of the equity in their homes (their #1 investment).
The New Retirement Plan: No Retirement
by CalculatedRisk on 8/20/2011 09:17:00 PM
...Here is the survey mentioned in the article: “The New Retirement: Working” (Diarist’s Note: Click upon the Calculated Risk story link, above, and then click on the hyperlink for the PDF download.)
• The survey found that for many Americans, the foundation of their retirement strategy is simply not to retire, to work considerably longer than the traditional retirement age, or work in retirement:
–39 percent of workers plan to work past age 70 or do not plan to retire
–54 percent of workers expect to plan to continue working when they retire
–40 percent now expect to work longer and retire at an older age since the recession
• Workers’ greatest fears about retirement include “outliving my savings and investments” and “not being able to meet the financial needs of my family.”
• Most workers will continue working out of financial necessity:
–Workers estimate their retirement savings needs at $600,000 (median), but in comparison, fewer than one-third (30 percent) have currently saved more than $100,000 in all household retirement accounts
–Most workers, regardless of age or household income, agree that they could work until age 65 and still not have enough money saved to meet their retirement needs
–Of those who plan on working past the traditional retirement age of 65, the most commonly cited reasons are of need versus choice
–Many workers (31 percent) anticipate that they will need to provide financial support to family members
I don’t know about you , but this just makes me feel sooooo…much…better…about proposed, “bipartisan” changes to the Social Security retirement age.
Yeah, I’m going to file this story right next to my recipe for “Cat Food Meatloaf.”
(I’m truly sorry that there are no “snark” tags for this diary.)
This is not going to end well...