Many Americans don't expect to ever retire

[Redfairen]

Source: USA Today

In a sign of just how bleak retirement prospects have gotten, more than a third of Americans say they will have to work until they literally can't anymore.

A new Wells Fargo study found that 37% of people don't ever expect to retire, but instead will have to "work until I'm too sick or die." Survey respondents say paying the monthly bills is their highest priority, and saving for retirement is a distant second.

.......

The annual Wells Fargo Middle Class Retirement study, a telephone survey conducted by Harris Interactive of 1,000 middle-class Americans between the ages of 25 and 75, was released Wednesday. Highlights:

* 59% say their top day-to-day concern is paying the bills

* 42% say both saving and paying the bills is not possible

* 48% are not confident they will be able to save enough for a comfortable retirement

* 34% say they will have to work until they are at least 80 because they have not saved enough.





Read more: http://m.freep.com/autosbusiness/article?a=2013310240107&f=1235

[ffr]

1. Because Republicans keep impeeding progress and raiding pensions and the Treasury!!!

NO MORE REPUBLICANS!

Once we get there, we'll fix what has been damaged and we'll have retirement programs that are safe.

[TygrBright]

2. Well, I certainly don't expect to be able to retire.

I'm sure that our Beloved Oligarchs would regard me retiring as one of those selfish, "taker" things, yanno.

Oh, yeah... and ENTIRELY my own fault for making bad choices like eating and sleeping under a roof, and paying car insurance and stuff, instead of investing cash with them for me to retire on.

Because it would be such a safe investment, yep.

disgustedly,
Bright

[CTyankee]

14. I used to hear that a lot, so it's nothing new. But if you think you will have to work past 65, you

might find out that your employer has other plans. There are ways of "helping" older workers out the door. Even with an up to date skill set, if you are older you are probably pulling down more money than a young replacement would get. And folks in their 60s can and do get sick or have other age related health issues.

Sad, but true. Been there, done that...

[TygrBright]

15. I am self-employed. I'll talk to my boss about it. n/t

[CTyankee]

28. well, in that case, I am sure your boss will "understand!"

I thinkthat the self employed folks who find a need and fill that need are in pretty good shape. Except that many of those self employed people work a LOT. However, it pays off if you are able to build a good business!

[TygrBright]

31. I used to resent all the hours, not having a life away from work...

...but it's getting really hard to distinguish the kind of always-working life you get in self-employment from the kind of always-working life you get with two or three crap jobs anymore.

So, yeah, it could be worse.

But retirement ain't an option.

realistically,
Bright

[jtuck004]

3. Oh, that's just today. Given the path we are on, and have been on for a couple of decades, the

percentage will be a fair amount higher. They just need a little more time to let reality get closer.

[silvershadow]

4. My mom is close to 70 now, and just "retired". That is, she took her Social Security and continues

to work, the maximum she can without causing harm. She is preparing to move in with my sister, because she can't afford to quit working without moving in with someone.

[duffyduff]

36. One of my sisters had to move in with the other. She's 73, and she really shouldn't be working at

all. However, she can't make it on just 1k of SS, even when living with somebody else.

[Hoyt]

5. I expect to work at least part-time as long as I can. I hope steps are taken to improve economy

so I can do that, and the young folks who will be paying my SS -- and your SS -- can find good jobs.

The "Trust Fund," how ever you view it, doesn't have enough money to pay our benefits.

[Yo_Mama]

19. Yes, the trust fund literally does not

Unless you have some pension coverage, or you have been lucky and able to save a considerable sum, those of us who are in our first half-50s now are slated to get full retirement benefits at 67, but have those retirement benefits reduced by approximately 1/5th because the trust funds will be exhausted.

SS is already three hots and a cot, and further cuts to it will provide retirements at poverty levels only. So most will continue to work.

[duffyduff]

35. You're assuming age discrimination doesn't exist.

If you're canned over 50, your career is over with LONG before age 67.

You are also engaging in misinformation about Social Security. There is no "trust fund" to be "exhausted." Those are phony, pessimistic projections.

[Yo_Mama]

37. Yes, but older people are working in jobs teens used to do

You get shitcanned, but when you don't have enough money to live, you get a part-time job. Whatever you need to make ends meet.

According to the law there is a trust fund, and according to the law when that trust fund is exhausted benefits will be cut.

You are right that there is really no separate pool of money from which we are paying recipients, and that in fact nothing would change about SS financing if the mythical trust fund were zeroed out tomorrow, but according to the law there is a trust fund and therefore it does matter.

I wouldn't assume that the law will be changed.

[IrishAyes]

6. The ones I feel the worst for

are the ladies in the generation before mine. Or even some my own age, who never had a real chance or maybe even no need for a career outside the home. Oh they worked for real, raising families and such, or maybe even farmed, but not much Social Security if any. If they're widows now, even if their husbands had carved out careers for themselves, survivor's benefits and so on can be pitifully small. Who can live on $500 a month? Not many. Take away their medical care and housing and food stamps, they're doomed. If a society is to be judged by how it treats the least of these, a world ruled or even heavily influenced by Repukes is my notion of hell.

As it is, I barely made it to 62 on a wing and a prayer. W/O profits from the sale of a small AZ ranch at the peak of the housing bubble, and lucky win of a classic 'fixer' home at auction in the MidWest for $14.5K, I'd be under a bridge right now if alive at all. That's all I had to live on for almost 4 years. Still, how often does good luck like that happen? If I'd followed my heart to Maine, for instance, I'd be among those forced to work until I drop.

[duffyduff]

33. Few women coming into retirement these days are in that position.

Those generations of women have almost entirely died off. These days we are talking about baby boomers, the first generation of women to have actually taken advantage of improved status.

Lots and lots of us who are on the cusp of retirement had our jobs STOLEN from us by asshole employers, and, thanks to age discrimination, find it almost impossible to bounce back.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

7. The propaganda is working....

[senseandsensibility]

24. Bingo.

Best response of the thread.

[Warpy]

8. Meanwhile, wet-behind-the-ears financial planners

are blaming older Boomers for not saving that requisite $2000/year from the time they turned 20, blissfully unaware of the economic history of this country regarding inflation. When most of us were 20, $2000/year was more than we cleared after taxes.

The good thing about having Social Security kick in is that the jobs Boomers will work can be dropped down to part time work instead of full time work. If there are jobs. Big if.

[CTyankee]

16. I know. I used to feel guilty and I was fed that BS about the 401k retirement fund that was supposed

to pay off these huge dividends, MUCH better than SS. I couldn't stuff enough money in each payday. When I paid off my car early I took the amount I had been paying and diverted it into my 401k, but that was at the tail end of my working career, when I had finally made enough money to do so (barely).

[Myrina]

9. Yep, that'll be me.

n/t

[RebelOne]

10. I am 74 and was forced into retirement at 71.

If I had not been laid off, I would still be working. I did not have enough in my 401K for a comfortable retirement. I live in a mobile home that I own. My expenses are low, but Social Security is just not covering all the bills. I have some savings, but it's just for emergencies. Sometime during the first of 2014, I will be moving in with my son and his wife to cut expenses. They are struggling also, so by moving into their house, I and they will benefit because I will be helping them with their expenses and cutting mine. Fortunately, they have a large house.

[duffyduff]

34. I am 58 and was illegally fired at 53.

I have yet to work full time ever again.

Your situation isn't all that typical anymore. Many of us don't even get the opportunity to work that long.

[The Stranger]

11. Capital and a Permanent Labor Class

They have succeeded.

Marx and Engels were right.

[lovuian]

12. American worker is a slave that is the reality

where the Europeans retire early with medical coverage

the difference is most of our tax money goes to the MILITARY and WAR

Americans are not living the dream

[reddread]

25. and our income to health insurance/expenses

oops, sorry.

[Triana]

13. Slavery. That's what GOP/TP/Capitalists want. Work till you die.

When they can't use you to make profit off of anymore, you're worthless. This is what people used to do before SS, pensions, unions and all that enabled people to retire in a decent fashion.

Make no mistake - the GOP, Tea Party, Capitalists, oligarchs and Wall St. want to return to the "good old days" when people just worked until they died - no retirement, never making enough money to save for any retirement, no Social Security, no health care - nothing. Just. Drop. Dead.

[awoke_in_2003]

17. I am 45 and don't expect to...

they want Social Security dead really badly. They will get it eventually. I contribute to my 401k, but you have better odds in Vegas.

[llmart]

18. I used to work with a guy.....

whose favorite line about retirement was, "I have enough to retire on as long as I drop dead the day after I retire."

He was only half kidding. We boomers were sold a bill of goods. We figured our lives would be about like our parents' lives - work for 45 years and then retire at 65 with a monthly pension for life. Maybe travel a bit in our retirement. Then something happened to us along the way and that something was the Reagan era where the companies we worked for were protected from paying their pension obligations by filing Chapter 11. Then they convinced us that it would be oh so much better anyway to invest for yourself and make a killing in the stock market, as if most of us knew anything about investing. But once the pensions were gone, what were you supposed to do? Not save at all? So some of us saved what we could in our 401K plans because we were told we'd get a "match" - usually 50%. But, whoa, wait a minute. When times got rough, those corporations could just say, "Well, we can't afford to match right now, but you can still put your own money in every payday." We were also told we could open our own IRA's and if you put in money it would be "tax free". But whoa, wait again. Reagan changed the rules and if you made more than $50K a year, well, you couldn't write it off your taxes at the end of the year.

So, if you wonder why us boomers are still working, think how we got screwed. We played by the rules and the rules kept changing.

[Fumesucker]

20. This thread is useless without pictures

[warrant46]

30. How to disguise the taste of Cat Food

Inside the Surprisingly Delicious World of Cat Food Taste Testing

http://mentalfloss.com/article/26562/inside-surprisingly-delicious-world-cat-food-taste-testing#ixzz2iy1bD1Ou

Cat food is serious business. Taking underutilized and low-value raw materials like animal byproducts and turning them into high-value foods can be, not surprisingly, very lucrative. Along with other pet foods, cat food makes up a hefty portion of the international prepared foods market.

In 2007, Dr. Gary Pickering, currently a Professor of Biological Sciences and Psychology/Wine Science at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, set out to develop a methodology for using human taste panels to assess canned cat food. The panel of taste testers was drawn from the staff and student population of Charles Sturt University-Riverina in Australia, where Pickering taught at the time, and screened with a battery of tasting exercises. In the last exercise, Pickering got down to the nitty gritty and brought out the cat food.

The final panel – consisting of 11 who apparently didn’t completely hate the act of eating cat food – rated samples of cat food meat chunks, gravies/gels and meat-gravy mixes over the course of six tasting sessions. They were first asked to describe the samples’ flavors and textures using a descriptor generation form provided by Pickering, resulting in a list of 119 flavor and 25 texture descriptors. That list was pared down to 18 flavor descriptors: sweet, sour, tuna, herbal, spicy, soy, salty, cereal, caramel, chicken, methionine, vegetable, offal-like, meaty, burnt, prawn, rancid and bitter. There were also four texture dimensions: hardness, chewiness, grittiness and viscosity. The panel then scored a range of cat food products for intensity of each of the flavors on the list and for “hedonic impression.”

Rest of article at Link---Very interesting

[Marrah_G]

21. I will most likely work until I am dead

My retirement account is maybe someone will die and leave me a chunk of money.

[woo me with science]

22. K&R Corporate slavery.

[Zorro]

23. That's why all the noise about reducing SS isn't going to fly

It's been reported that over half of seniors approaching retirement age have less than $25K saved.

SS will be what they will depend on to survive.

[doc03]

26. I am retired and worry I may have to go back to work

in a few years the way we are going.

[treestar]

27. That's me, but to tell the truth, it really sounds boring

I got depressed going over to my grandfather's house to see him watching TV all day. Occasionally socializing and going out, true, but still mostly hanging around. So even if I had money for it, I'd still keep doing something.

[woo me with science]

29. kick

[Arugula Latte]

32. I know I don't. I HOPE I can just keep working. I won't have enough $ otherwise.

[Nihil]

38. FWIW, it's not just Americans who are saying that these days. (n/t)