Will you ever retire? This is an important question to ask, considering a lack of savings, price inflation, low interest rates, a rising cost of living and stagnant wages. Is retirement gradually becoming an antiquated concept?
New data from the United States Census Bureau find that Americans are working longer than ever before. The numbers suggest that nearly 20 percent of Americans 65 years of age and older are employed at some capacity. This is the largest percentage since 1965 when 18 percent of older Americans were working.
This isn’t relatively a new trend. The data show that the figure has steadily been going up since the year 2000. And it isn’t slowing down because one-quarter of Americans plan to work as long as possible.
But why? Ostensibly, they need the dough. According to Bloomberg News:
Three in five retirees surveyed by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies said making money or earning benefits was at least one reason they had retired later than they planned to. Almost half said financial problems were their main reason for working past 65. The financial crisis, and the tech bust before it, devastated many baby boomers’ retirement savings. That’s if they had any to begin with. Today, 60% of US households have no money in a 401(k) or similar retirement account, and the benefits of 401(k)s are skewed toward the wealthiest Americans, a recent report by the Government Accountability Office found.
Millennials today concede that they’ll never retire. But, at the same time, any of them say they’ll die in debt.
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