Low-Income Americans Will Need To Regularly Work Into Their Eighties: Study (HuffPo/AOHell)

[ProfessionalLeftist]

If you were thinking of retiring in your sixties, think again. And according to a new study, even seventy is pushing it.

The study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, entitled “The Impact of Deferring Retirement Age on Retirement Income Adequacy,” says the future of the American worker, particularly those in lower-income brackets, is one that requires working much later into life.

Only by retiring at 75 years old would a majority of those in the lowest income quartile -- defined as earning below $11,700 annually -- have half a chance of not running out of money during retirement, the study finds. Working until 85 years old doesn't completely secure Americans, either. Indeed, a majority of workers that age making less than $31,000 annually still have a roughly 20 percent change of running out of funds, the report finds.

Even when accounting for benefits provided by Medicare and Social Security, early retirement remains little more than a pipe dream, the report finds.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/10/seniors-may-have-to-wait-until-their-80s_n_874867.html

[xchrom]

1. Not good. Nt

[graywarrior]

2. National Senior Network, a non-profit that provides training for 55 and over, just got their funding

cut. That means, seniors, mostly in their mid 60's and up, who are on social security but training to enter the job market again by working at these jobs, just lost their opportunity. The original 20 hours per weeks was dropped to 18 hours, and this week will drop to 12 at $8 per hour.

Most of the people I know who work these jobs MUST work them. Social Security is not enough to survive on. A lot of these people have disabilities but are willing to show up and DO show up to work. This is what getting old in America is. You know you MUST work, but no one wants to hire you so you settle for a grant from the government to train you (Lyndon Johnson signed this into being in the 60's), and the republicans demand it be cut.

Very scary times for the elderly.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

3. Scary times for us who are approaching being 'elderly'

ie: 40s and 50s.

[graywarrior]

7. Seriously....it is a grim future we are staring at.

And most jobs demand at least a BA or BS. If you do not have that and are in your 50's, you a screwed unless you don't mind working at Kohl's or WalMart.

[elocs]

4. I'm as poor as a church mouse and I will retire at 62.

There was a thread about this here yesterday: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1264106&mesg_id=1264106

I am fortunate that I only have me to worry about and my needs and expenses are very small.

[lunatica]

5. I'm no longer worrying about being able to retire. My worry now

is will they let me work until I'm 80?

Then there's the worry of getting Dementia or breaking a hip or getting any number of the diseases that afflict the elderly. At least now I'm very healthy, but my mother's dementia started in her late 70s.

[KG]

6. i fully expect to work till the day i die.

[Scuba]

8. Low-Income Americans Will Need To Regularly Work Into Their Eighties...

...before they can cut back to only two jobs.




Meanwhile, owner-class citizens don't work at all, produce nothing, earn billions, and pay a lower tax rate than the teachers, firemen, scientists, et al, who are trying to save our asses.

[Coyote_Bandit]

9. I know a woman in her mid 80's

who works several days a week doing physical labor cleaning houses in order to be able to buy food. She and her husband both worked all their lives - she as a hair stylist and he at the farmers co-op. They ought not find themselves in these circumstances.

Me? When my aging parents are gone I hope to leave this fucked up country. There are better opportunities elsewhere. Better opportunities to earn a living wage, better opportunities to secure affordable health care, better opportunities to have a chance to actually retire before dying. I am a throwaway here. 50ish and long-term unemployed with no prospects of employment - or hope that will change in the forseeable future. I feel like I have invested enough into this economy. If I can't immigrate legally then maybe I'll just overstay my travel visa.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

15. That's been in the back of my mind too

and inching ever closer to the fore. I was thinking Costa Rica but the COL is going up there too because so many people are going there. I love the idea of France but really I'm not sure.

[Love Bug]

10. In other words, work until you drop

Most people don't reach 80, so this all means most of us will never be able to retire. Lovely.

[rhett o rick]

11. The problem is that Americans cant work past about 55. Their are no fukin jobs. nm

[ProfessionalLeftist]

14. Bingo. Right there.

My brother is in that situation. He's worried sick - because he needs to be saving money for when he can't work. Now, he can but no damn jobs!

[sakabatou]

12. Yay!

Not.

[JVS]

13. The work and poverty will kill them before they're 80

[rhett o rick]

16. It doesnt appear to me that many have figured that out. nm

[WillyT]

17. HUGE K & R !!!

:kick:

[DonCoquixote]

18. Sad thing is

The people who helped make this happen are the two generations that voted in the GOP, the so called greatest gen, and their Baby boomer kids. Generations X thru the Milennials are really, really going to hate them.