If surveys have taught us anything, it’s that the path to retirement is nowhere near as easy as it might appear on paper.
Most workers presume that working for four decades, saving money, and investing it for the future will result in meeting their retirement number. Unfortunately, as many surveys on pre-retirees (i.e., baby boomers) have recently shown, things don’t always work out this way. Life has a way of throwing workers for a loop. Things like an unexpected illness, buying a home, paying for college, or starting a family are all costs that workers may fail to account for, thus throwing their plan to get from point A to B into disarray.
We don’t have to look far to see what sort of problems baby boomers are dealing with. A study from the Insured Retirement Institute’s showed that roughly four in 10 boomers have nothing saved for retirement. A separate study from the Employee Benefit Research Institute suggests that 43% of boomer households aren’t on track to meet their financial retirement needs.
But it’s current retirees who have an even scarier tale to tell.
3 Frightening Retirement Findings You Never Saw Coming
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There’s a big difference between perception and reality when it comes to retirement.
There’s a big difference between perception and reality when it comes to retirement.Most workers presume that working for four decades, saving money, and investing it for the future will result in meeting their retirement number. Unfortunately, as many surveys on pre-retirees (i.e., baby boomers) have recently shown, things don’t always work out this way. Life has a way of throwing workers for a loop. Things like an unexpected illness, buying a home, paying for college, or starting a family are all costs that workers may fail to account for, thus throwing their plan to get from point A to B into disarray.
We don’t have to look far to see what sort of problems baby boomers are dealing with. A study from the Insured Retirement Institute’s showed that roughly four in 10 boomers have nothing saved for retirement. A separate study from the Employee Benefit Research Institute suggests that 43% of boomer households aren’t on track to meet their financial retirement needs.
But it’s current retirees who have an even scarier tale to tell.
Three frightening retirement findings according to retirees
The Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies, or TCRS, released it first-ever survey on retirees early last month, The Current State of Retirement: Pre-Retiree Expectations and Retiree Realities (link opens a large PDF), with the major finding being that what pre-retirees believe retirement to be, and what retirement actually is according to retirees, is often very different. Specifically, TCRS points to three critical findings from its study that are downright frightening.
1. Three in five retired earlier than they’d planned
Considering that quite a few boomers are behind the eight ball in terms of saving for retirement, some have chosen the path where they’ll work longer than the traditional retirement age of 65. Working longer could delay the need for boomers to file for Social Security benefits, thus allowing their work income to cover their expenses and netting a larger Social Security payout when they do eventually file for benefits.
There’s just one problem: There’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to work past age 65 or that your employer will want you around. A whopping 60% of surveyed retirees noted that they wound up retiring earlier than they had planned. Of those who retired early, 16% had enough money to do so, 27% left the workforce due to issues with their own health, and 66% blamed it on organizational changes within their workplace. These changes encompassed surveyed retirees being laid off, being unhappy with their job, or receiving an early retirement incentive/buyout. By comparison, just 7% retired later than they’d planned.