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Is retirement out of the question?
The financial safety nets in our country seem to be doing about as much good as the proverbial screen door in a submarine. Nearly 40% of Americans over the age of 62 have delayed their retirement because of the recession. Our retirement dreams are slowly fading away into the horizon like a bad movie, or worse, turning into nightmares we can’t wake up from.
For the typical American, only 45% of retirement income is funded by Social Security. That’s not not nearly enough to live comfortably on, let alone bankroll even the most modest dreams of what life would be after retirement.
Unless you’ve been fortunate to have socked away a lot of money, or have a decent pension (or, better yet, fabulously wealthy and generous offspring), retirement is not something you are looking forward to. That IRA you’ve been counting on is probably still circling the drain, even if you were conservative with it. A lot of us were not – a study found that nearly a quarter of Americans ages 56 to 64 had more than 90 percent of their 401(k) balances invested in stocks instead of bonds, against financial advisers’ standard advice for people nearing retirement age. That’s 90% that’s been unmercifully hammered.
So what the hell are we going to do but keep working, if we can, that is? Problem is the more of us that keep working the less job opportunities for others who need to find work. That means more unemployment, a longer recession, a more meager recovery and lousy retirement prospects. How’s that for a depressing mouthful?
It wouldn’t hurt to take a look at how some other countries are faring during this downturn. Especially how people at retirement age are doing. We still may be the smartest, richest country in the world, but that doesn’t mean we can’t learn a little from looking around a bit – there are safety nets out there with a lot less holes in them than ours.
For a more detailed look at this problem, take a look at the following article: http://bit.ly/2XTwV
