Poll: Boomers anxiety about retirement grows
Susan Webb and her husband Bob hold their dog Max in their West Liberty, Iowa, home, Nov. 9, 2011. An Associated Press-LifeGoesStrong.com poll finds a baby boom generation planning to work into retirement years _ with 73 percent planning to work past retirement, up from 67 percent this spring. / AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall
WASHINGTON - A majority of baby boomers say they have taken a financial hit in the past three years and most now doubt that they will be financially secure after they retire, according to a new poll.
So much for kicking back at the lake house, long afternoons of golf or pretty much anything this generation had dreamed about in retirement. The Associated Press-LifeGoesStrong.com poll found a baby boom generation planning to work into retirement years — with 73 percent planning to work past retirement, up from 67 percent this spring.
In all, 53 percent of boomers polled said they do not feel confident they'll be able to afford a comfortable retirement. That's up from 44 percent who were concerned about retirement finances in March.
"I'm not confident at all," says 63-year-old Susan Webb of West Liberty, Iowa.
Webb — one of the 77 million boomers born between 1946 and 1964 — had long hoped to retire at 65 from her job as a real estate broker. Not anymore, not since the economic downturn that led to depressed housing prices, wild stock market swings and an unemployment rate hovering at or above 9 percent for all but two months since May 2009.
Webb and her husband, who's 67, are both still working full time. They hope to ratchet back to part time at some point, but plans for a scenic lake house where they can go fishing and spend time with their two grandchildren will likely mean selling their current home — not part of the original plan.
At 50, Cheri Hubbs of Norfolk, Va., is on the younger side of the boomer spectrum. Even so, she knows she'll work in retirement.
"I just feel like I'm going to work until the day I die," says Hubbs, an administrative assistant.
Hubbs had little saved for retirement when she went to see a financial planner a few years ago. Now, she and her husband are socking away as much money as they can. She's also cut back drastically on her little luxuries — trips to the nail salon and Starbucks.
In the poll, 41 percent of boomers said they are expecting to have to scale back their lifestyle in some way in retirement and 31 percent believe they will struggle financially.
Retirement expert Olivia Mitchell says working longer and cutting back are two practical ways for boomers to save more.
"It's a kind of downscaled consumer society that I see in the next five years at least," said Mitchell, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and executive director of the Pension Research Council. "Consume less and tighten the belt."
Downsizing is part of the plan for software designer Greg Schmidt of Carlisle, Mass.
Schmidt, 53, says there's no doubt he'll be working longer, likely into his 70s. With a daughter in high school and twin 12-year-old boys, he's got college tuitions to worry about as well as an aging father and father-in-law.
He plans one day to move to a smaller home, maybe in the mountains of Vermont. Almost one-quarter of boomers in the poll — 23 percent — said retirement will mean they'll have to move.
For Schmidt, the stock market is another source of anxiety.
"I am most concerned that we're going to be entering a different time and equities aren't quite as valued," he said. "I am afraid I'm a little heavy into equities."
The span between the two AP-LifeGoesStrong.com polls coincided with a 10 percent drop in the Dow Jones industrial average, which recovered most of those losses by climbing this week to above 12,000 before plunging again amid concerns about Europe's debt crisis.
In all, 62 percent of the boomers polled lost money on at least one of four core parts of retirement savings:
-A workplace retirement savings plan, 42 percent.
-Personal investments outside of an IRA/workplace savings, 41 percent.
-An IRA (individual retirement account), 32 percent.
-Real estate, 29 percent.
The AP-LifeGoesStrong.com poll was conducted Oct. 5-12 by Knowledge Networks of Palo Alto, Calif. It involved online interviews with 1,095 baby boomers, as well as companion interviews with an additional 315 adults of other age groups. The survey has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points for baby boomers and 4.8 percentage points for all adults.
Knowledge Networks used traditional telephone and mail sampling methods to randomly recruit respondents. People selected who had no Internet access were given it for free.
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You are absolutely right. I left the U.S. many years ago and have never regretted the decision.
----
I retire to the south coast of Guatemala in 3 years. 50 degrees overnight all year round, 70 in the winter, 80 in the summer. No heat, no air required. Beautiful.
I am already fluent in Spanish - taught myself about 30 years or so ago.
Many Americans see leaving the US as unthinkable and live in relative poverty the rest of their lives as a result.
Pity.
Sounds like you are saying the same thing as what I said. All I was saying was that after having paid into social security for just under four decades, I figure that money may not be there for me because corrupt politicians used it for pet projects like it was their money. I have a definite mistrust of corporations because they expect complete loyalty from their employees, but when the going gets tough, they have no problems with laying off those same employees. The government does the same. People have paid into social security all of the time they've worked and the government cuts that benefit, but at the same time bails out bankers and wall street gamblers caught with their hands in the cookie jar. We have two tier system that favors the comfortable and stomps on the weak. Being a middle class person, I am aware of just how fragile my predicament is and that it would take only a nudge to push me into the unemployed poor bracket.....many people out there are clueless and haven't even thought about this.
I advise anyone with a Pension who reaches the age where they can pull the money out to do so immediately! Too many companies enter periods of fiscal troubles and in bankruptcy, convince judges to vacate the Pension agreements and keep all of that money. The second you can get your hands on it, pull it! That's usually at age 55 and you have to be gone from the company.
Pull company 401(k) funds also when you leave a company. Although the deposits are guaranteed, the match is not and can be taken away in bankruptcy court. Roll it into something self-directed.
These companies just don't get that when they end their loyalty to their employees, their employees end their loyalty to them. How many people do you know who are working at a job where they have been at for 30 years? Not as common anymore. People look for better opportunities more and leave loyalty behind, seeing how the companies are treating people.
This particular Supreme Court is nothing but an extension of the Chamber of Commerce which in turn is nothing but a union of businesses. People complain all of the time about workers unions, but you never hear anything about the chamber of commerce being a union of businesses (and that's only the public side of their meetings by the way).
Some pensions are money the company gives the employee, but all the same, when that employee is vested, that money is the employees, not that of the company.
Only until Bankruptcy. Then it can be wiped away. Ask Boeing retirees. Or Chrysler. Or many others who now have nothing.
I have resolved myself to the fact that my 401(k) will probably not be much when I retire. Social Security will probably have long been squandered by then. And I'll work until a company decides I'm too old to work for them, and/or until I die. That's just reality. And I'm single!
Sucks. I've been working since about 14 years old. I've been paying into my social security every single week, and somehow I'm NOT entitled to that money? I've been investing in my 401(k) for 20 years and saw it cut in half when the market crashed. Just when my numbers started to approach those of pre-market crash numbers, guess what, it crashed again, and has been saw-toothing ever since.
And I have news for everyone the problem is NEITHER republican NOR democrat. It's EVERYONE'S problem.
The entitlement generation, those making the disparaging comments, have a differing philosophy: They take, rather than give, consume rather than contribute, complain rather than solve, are selfish rather than selfless, are perpetually ungrateful for all they have, think they are beyond laws and boundries, believe they are special, and self centric to a near non fucntioning degree.
They sicken me at every turn. I respect the boomer for what they have accomplished.
Still trying to figure out why they are disparaged so much.....
I hate the Baby Boomers. They're the most self-centered, self-seeking, self-
interested, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing generation in
American history. As they enter late middle age, the Boomers still can't grow
up. Guys who once dropped acid are now downing Viagra; women who once eschewed
lipstick are now getting liposuction.
I know it's a sin to hate, so let me put it this way: If they were animals,
they'd be a plague of locusts, devouring everything in their path and leaving
but a wasteland. If they were plants, they'd be kudzu, choking off ever other
living thing with their sheer mass. If they were artists, they'd be abstract
expressionists, interested only in the emotions of that moment -- not in the
lasting result of the creative process. If they were a baseball club, they'd be
the Florida Marlins: prefab prima donnas who bought their way to prominence,
then disbanded -- a temporary association but not a team.
more: http://www.superseventies.com/worstgen.html
Read the "Retirement Heist".
When the market cratered in 2008, there was no surplus to cushion the blow, and today, pensions collectively are underfunded by 20%.
With one big exception: Pensions for top executives continue to spiral, and account for much of the growing pension cost companies complain about.
Solution: Retire to a country where your SocSec and retirement income puts you in the Top 1%.
The ONLY reason to live in the US is because you've become accustom to the idea. There a plenty of countries where you can live much better in your last years, and where 1/2 of your estate won't go to some hospital for prolonging your life 3 weeks.