Contributing author Richard Fossey recently wrote about how badly retirement is going to treat Baby Boomers.
His post The Baby Boomers are Toast: Massive Suffering is Right Around the Corner says, “And many of my contemporaries are frightened. One-third of senior Americans live entirely on Social Security, and the average payout is only $1,220 a month. That’s 19 million retirees living near or below the poverty line.”
This has been a slow-moving train wreck I’ve been blabbering on about for years now. People get such tunnel vision about dealing with their debt that they don’t account for the need to get back in the saving for retirement game quickly.
But the retirement crisis that is absolutely coming starts much earlier in life. Saving early on is mandatory to have enough resources to help you when you are older and unable to work.
But with stagnant wages and increased family finance pressure from health insurance and student loans, younger families are falling behind and falling out the bottom of the middle class.
A comprehensive article by The Wall Street Journal started with, “The American middle class is falling deeper into debt to maintain a middle-class lifestyle.” The facts seem to support the slow slide of people into an income range where they are unable to tread water, much less save for retirement.
You might be outraged by people asking for help with public benefits but what are you going to do when the “they” become “you” in a financial tailspin and old and unable to work?
You hit the nail on the head with your article about retirement going to suck for baby boomers. This is what I am facing now. I’ve been dreading it for years, but had no recourse to change the outcome. I am almost 67 and still working full-time. My intention is to work her until I am vested for a small pension, which will be next year. I will then leave here and start collecting SS; however, I will still have to get another job in order to have the basics of life. I’m hoping it can be part-time, but who knows. I became a single mom at 39 with 4 kids. I went back to school and got a degree and started working full time. But as inflation continued to far outweigh my net income, it was impossible for me to try and save. If I managed to put a little away, there was usually some emergency that occurred and I would have to take the little bit of savings to use for the emergency. We were living paycheck to paycheck and it has never changed. Not long after my last child left the nest, I lost my job of 15 years, and had to take a job with a $10k a year pay cut. That’s a lot of money. So I still live paycheck to paycheck and wonder what the future will hold. It keeps me awake at night.
D. Circle
Deb,
If there is a silver lining here it would be all the worrying in the world isn’t going to alter the underlying facts. While it’s going to suck, at least you don’t have to let it infect your every day.
Steve