About one-quarter of U.S. adults age 50 and older who are not yet retired say they expect to never retire and 70% are concerned about prices rising faster than their income, an AARP survey finds.
About 1 in 4 have no retirement savings, according to research released Wednesday by the organization that shows how a graying America is worrying more and more about how to make ends meet even as economists and policymakers say the U.S. economy has all but achieved a soft landing after two years of record inflation.
Everyday expenses and housing costs, including rent and mortgage payments, are the biggest reasons why people are unable to save for retirement.
I think that people don’t really understand what it means when they claim they have no plans to retire. My in-laws are always saying things like “I’ll work until I die” while they take out debt to go on vacations but they recently brought up that we should make sure to get an extra bedroom for them if/when we buy a house. The disconnect is infuriating.
Well I’ll retire (sorta). I’ll just get another job making 50% what I was making and earning 75% of my original salary through retirement. I’ll work till I’m dead but at least I’ll make more money for a bit … until inflation eats it.
My dad did this for a while. Had a nice white collar job my entire childhood. He loved boating and owned one for 40+ years. A year or so after he retired from that he got a part time job as a cashier at a marine supply store. He loved the interactions with other boaters. He did that for probably 10 years before retiring fully.
I really think that some time should be given to personal finance in school curriculum.
When I went through, we learned to write a check and balance a checkbook. That was it.
I think we need to bring back pensions. There is plenty of money around.
Definitely not. While the current situation doesn’t work, neither did pensions. You had to work at one job your whole life, and then were subject to the business decisions of all the sociopathic CEOs throughout your career, as well as whether the corp even survived. I don’t think small companies even had an option. There were some people where this all came together but way too few.
Current IRA and 401k plans have one HUGE benefit: the money is yours. It doesn’t matter whether you change jobs, work for big or small, or the corp goes out of business, the money is yours.
I’m pretty sure more people have some retirement savings now than they did in the days of pensions. Let’s figure out how to turn that into most people having enough savings
My oldest did have to take a personal finance class in high school (last year) and did cover things like retirement saving and different methods of. I think some places are trying.
Edit: I, on the other hand, had your experience.
I’m not sure it will help in this scenario. This is more of an instant gratification thing. Whether someone has a bit extra or not, you’re asking them to do without, on the hope that it will be more useful in half a century. This is completely against human nature.
I’ve got retirement funds scattered across a half-dozen different companies and honestly I have no idea how to find it. Probably doesn’t amount to more than $150k anyway. Could be half that - I really have no way of knowing. I was planning on never retiring, but the job market says otherwise. I might already be retired. Six weeks into my job search with 25 years of experience and not even an interview much less an offer. It hasn’t been this bad since 2010.
Wow, you sound pretty nonchalant about losing $150K!
I mean it’s somewhere. I don’t know what companies hold it but I’m sure there are records somewhere. I probably have to dig through emails up to a decade back - assuming I used personal emails instead of work emails. It really doesn’t matter for another nearly twenty years. I’m sure it’ll turn up.
I sort of have to not think about it to avoid obsessing over it. I’m sure I’m not the first person to not know what institutions hold their 401Ks. There a system for figuring it out.
Rolling funds over to consolidate is free and easy, but you have to find it first and do some paperwork. It would really help you to have it all together in one spot that you can pay attention to (yes, that was me a few years back).
Hopefully not your scenario but
- I’d you get divorced, they charge per fund to take half your money, regardless of how much. I lost thousands of dollars unnecessarily just by not having consolidated
At 40 and with $8k in my retirement fund (cashed it out on a business venture right before COVID…live and learn) I’m anticipating to do this as well.
Ah, life.
You’ve got time. Time is your biggest weapon. Start putting aside what you can and let time work for you
Seems low.
Doesn’t mean they will, just that 3/4s think they will
So you’re saying a good 50% of Americans have no idea how they could possibly retire, they just think they will anyway.
Welcome to America
Only 1 in 4? 🤔 I’ve NEVER been under the illusion I would retire.
Are you over 50?
Yup!
Did you save at least 20-30% of your income in tax advantaged accounts?
30% on the solar panels. ;)
I won’t be retiring. Not particularly good with money, plus a divorce, I’m 60, and have about 200K in retirement. It’s my own fault, I could have been far smarter. Now was always far more important than then.
It’s my own fault, I could have been far smarter.
No. No it isn’t. It’s the country’s fault for not giving you enough to retire on even though you didn’t make the best financial decisions over the years. People should not be punished in their old age because they didn’t follow all the right rules of capitalism (which keep changing anyway).
It might be your fault that you’re not as comfortable or as well-off as you would like to be, but it is not your fault that you can’t retire.
Blaming anyone but yourself is the new hotness around here it seems. Not planning for the future is somehow now your fault but the fault of the country? Sounds a bit entitled to me
Yes it is. Other countries don’t force people to work until they die if they’re poor.
I’m 60, and have about 200K in retirement
Sadly, I think that puts you way ahead of most Americans.
Your guess is a bit off, average 401k for a 60 year old is north of 400k.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/average-american-much-retirement-savings-141907331.html
Interesting how you cherry picked there… This kind of thing makes me super curious: was this an honest misreading of the source? Or do you have some agenda here that involves pretending Americans have more retirement savings than they do.
Like I’m not going to copy/paste the entire article, but I recommend going back and reading it again?
Maybe study up on the different types of averages, and why median is often used (and why the median figure in the article is so different than the “average” that you chose to use).
Here I’ll make it extra easy for you, it’s literally in the paragraph right after the numbers:
The difference is important, because averages are relatively easy to skew with outlying data. In the case of the U.S. economy, a small number of households hold vastly more wealth and assets than most others. This skews the average result upwards, making it look like most Americans have more money saved than they actually do.
Also, I’m honestly just not sure how much I care about, specifically, the retirement savings of people aged 55-60. That’s a really narrow range there.
Are you referring to the use of the average rather than the mean amount saved? The article is only like 4 paragraphs and I don’t think there was anything to miss. That said I also have a 401k tracker through my investments and it shows most individuals in that age group have around 400-500k.
It’s like you didn’t even read the entire article you sent… You’re right, it’s not long. Try again to understand it. I’m not going to copy/paste quotes from an article that’s like 2 paragraphs, I’m certain you can figure it out yourself.
And yes, the use of median instead of mean is important, and you end up with a very different (but more accurate) numbers when using it to try to understand this type of statistic, as that way the data isn’t skewed by outliers.
With the median, half of people are above, half are below. If you use the mean (what people generally default to when they hear/say average), you don’t end up with useful information because this is America and we have people with billion dollar bank accounts, and all you need is one or two of those to throw off the mean and make things look higher than they are.
Well looks like I went and explained it anyway…
