Originally published by ANewDomain.net:
A frightening survey of Americans by the Federal Reserve finds desperate poverty among a high percentage of ordinary citizens. Among the highlights: 31% of pre-retirement Americans have zero retirement savings or pensions and are planning to work until they die.
7 Comments.
Not to worry. He’s 52, which means AARP will tell him which marginally-less-evil candidate to endorse. Play the long game, people. The looooooooong game.
Whenever I see I comment that starts with “Not to worry” I think it is Henri’s.
We are are Charlie Henri. …
I kept working until I was able to take early retirement at age 62.
Then I moved to Mexico, where my retirement allows me to live relatively comfortably.
🙂
For the other 69% of workers who still have pensions, the 0.01% are “working hard” everyday to devise methods to steal the $’s in those pensions for themselves
Also, a lot of pensions aren’t designed to be one-stop solutions. A lot of people collecting “pensions” are not collecting enough to live on.
Social Security will provide me — assuming it’s there when I get to it — with a significant amount of my retirement income, but the notion that I will be able to survive on it at 67 or 77 or 87 is simply not realistic.
Why don’t I have more in my 401(k)? I’m underpaid, haven’t gotten a raise in several years, I have student loans, etc., etc.
All these articles (Ted’s included) make it sound like people are living wildly irresponsible financial lives. But the truth is that a dollar buys a dollar’s worth of goods and services. When I get through with the essentials, the amount left to my “discretion” is terribly small.
But don’t say “union” or they’ll fire you, you “at-will” employee.
@ alex_the_tired –
A dollar buys 15.71 Mexican pesos’ worth of goods (at today’s rates). That’s why I moved to Mexico after I retired. Well, actually a dollar was worth 10 pesos when I made the move, so my retirement income goes farther today than it did then.
I guess I’ll be expatriated to Mexico until I die.
🙂