Retire? Now? What hard working American would even consider the idea? We Americans just love to work, even if only some of us get the Big Bucks for our efforts. Besides, we can’t retire. We don’t have enough money.
A study to be released on Thursday by Canadian insurer Sun Life Financial Inc found 65 percent of U.S. workers plan to stay on the job at least one more year than planned, an 11 percentage point increase from a similar survey in January.
“There is a huge drop in confidence that has taken place,” because of the fall of stock markets since 2007, Wes Thompson, president of Sun Life’s U.S. division, told Reuters in an interview. At the same time, longer life expectancies mean individuals need to build up more savings before they stop working. […]
Also, a forthcoming study by Prudential Financial Inc found that 66 percent of respondents over the age of 45 said they may need to work longer than expected to afford retirement.
And a recent survey by mutual fund giant Vanguard Group Inc of Pennsylvania found that 45 percent of American investors said putting off retirement was “possible” and the figure was nine percent points higher among people in their fifties.
That might explain all those 70 year old people I see working at Supermarkets and Fast Food places, or just burnishing up their resumes for a job search. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. On second thought, maybe there is. Maybe a retirement system that depends heavily on the fluctuating value of your stock portfolio wasn’t the best idea for ordinary folks, no matter how good it might have been for Wall Street and your employer.
Just a thought.
