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baby boomers; retirement

Sorry!! 50% (Or More) Of Retirees Will Outlive Their Retirement Savings

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Feeling safe and secure about your retirement funds? Are you in the 50% or so that will outlive your savings? Love that I am going here right now?

Dig this… yes its true, more than 50% of retirees (and even you great Gen X members) will die kinda poor if you think living on your Social Security checks of say $17,000 per year ain’t that appealing. I won’t go into major detail right now. But, I will, soon, I promise.

What has caused this? Here is a list of factors, but not all of them:

  • You simply didn’t save enough (that’s why Gen X and gen Y better start now)
  • Only 53% of workers have a pension or 401K
  • Workers age 55 to 64 had just $54,000 in their 401K in 2010
  • On average, this group has $120,000 in savings (that’s about 1/4 required according to the experts)

Bottom line? Our savings culture and systems suck. Yes, there are solutions being considered by pro-active politicians like Senator Tom Harkin (but not in time for those lucky Baby Boomers.)

Stay tuned.

 

Credit Card Debt: Who Owes The Most? Baby Boomers Or Gen X / Gen Y?

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It might make sense to think that the younger generation uses their credit cards more than most and are sitting on some serious credit card debt but, they are not the leaders. Baby Boomers, according to the report The Plastic Safety Net from the public policy outfit Demos, are winning here.

The group with the highest credit card debt is the 65+ crowd who owe on average $9,283.

Those Gen X and Gen Y  folks? They owe $2,982 for 18-24 yer olds and $5,156 for 24-34 year olds.

A key implication? Many Baby Boomers are heading into their retirement years broke and out of work. Is this alarmist? Yes. Is it true? Yes. Want more? The average total retirement savings for Baby Boomers is $78,000  — try stretching that over 10, 20 or 30 years.

Are You Middle Class?

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middle class

We are going to spend the next few months arguing over the middle class. What’s good for them and what’s not. Who are they? Where do you fit?

In 2011, 50.7% of adults (ages 18 and older) lived in middle-income households. That’s 117 million adults out of the U.S. household population of 231 million adults.

 

 

You Are Never, Ever Going to Retire

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OK, “never” might be too strong. But, not by much according to a new AARP study:

72 percent of non-retired boomers believe they will probably be forced to delay retirement, and 50 percent have little confidence that they will ever be able to retire.

65 percent have little confidence that they will have the means to live comfortably in retirement.

Clearly these finding belie the standard image of happy Baby Boomers that are safe and secure in their third stage of life. (That’s why I wrote my book.)

From the AARP website:

“The poll results show that “people in this age group are facing a difficult transition, and they’re worried about whether they can do it,” says Jacquelyn James of the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College. “Most people had planned for a three-legged stool that would give them a happy, healthy retirement: a pension, their own savings and Social Security and Medicare.

“But over the past 15 years, pensions have been disappearing, and their investments have been hit hard by the downturn. Now, they’re worrying that politicians are not going to continue to support the entitlement programs. That’s why some are feeling that they need to add a fourth leg to the stool: continuing to work.”