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Monday, June 8th, 2015

New study reminds us that Americans are woefully unprepared for retirement

Author:     Suzanne McGee
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Sunday 7 June 2015 08.30 EDT
 Link: New study reminds us that Americans are woefully unprepared for retirement
Stephan:   401(k)s, a scheme devised by financial interests to milk the middle class and promoted by the Republic Party, like all trickle down Randian economic schemes, have proven to be a disaster. Here is the real story; it isn't pretty, and it is hardly acknowledged by American corporate media. But its impact is going to be tragically painful. I can find no example in the world where austerity conservative economic policies have produced increased wellness. But there are dozens of examples of their failure. Yet this is hardly mentioned in the campaigns -- except by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
For many people, the retirement ‘plan’ is to simply keep working. Credit: Ruaridh Stewart/Zuma Press/Corbis

For many people, the retirement ‘plan’ is to simply keep working.
Credit: Ruaridh Stewart/Zuma Press/Corbis

Are we all in denial or is it simply impossible to save enough for retirement? Is it some kind of toxic combination of the two? Whatever the reason, yet another study – this one from no less an authority than the non-partisan US government accountability office (GAO) – is here to remind us that we’re woefully unprepared, financially speaking, for retirement. While we may all have dreams about how we’d like to spend our retirement years – fishing, golfing, writing that great American novel – the truth is that as many as half of all households with Americans 55 and older have no retirement savings at all. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Not a dime.

And the news gets worse, the GAO reports. Because households headed by older Americans that don’t have retirement savings like 401(k) plans or IRA accounts also are less likely to have other sources […]

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1 Comment

  1. steve hovland on Monday, June 8, 2015 at 6:28 am

    A lot of my family has lived to be about 90. I figure I’d need at least a million dollars in saving to cover me if I retired now. Don’t have it. Like many Americans I haven’t had a raise in real terms for more than a decade. On the other hand, I think retirement is one of the false gods we worship. It’s common for men to die a few years after they retire, I think because they no longer have a purpose in life. Men’s lives are defined by their work. Take that away, what do you have? We need to change to thinking that we’ll do something to make money as long as we can.