Current Events > Work longer is no solution for people who can't afford to retire

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https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-02-26/older-workers-retirement-insecurity

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In April 2023, Betty Glover, a 91-year-old grocery store clerk in Oregon, was finally able to retire after a GoFundMe campaign raised $82,000 for her. After seven decades in the workforce, Glover couldnt save enough to retire and cover basic expenses such as for food and medicine.

I hate the thought of not working, Glover told a local TV station. But she wanted to spend time with her two children, four grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and two great-great-grandchildren.
Glovers was not the only GoFundMe retirement. Earlier that year, 82-year-old Walmart cashier Butch Marion retired, thanks to a GoFundMe campaign.
These outpourings of generosity are not feel-good stories; they reveal Americas severely broken national retirement system. Welcome to retirement American style, where retirement is work.
Most Americans do not have enough money to retire on. Forty-four percent of households with members ages 55-64 have no savings at all. The median retirement account balance is about $100,000; most middle-class people need $600,000. No wonder there are about 39 million workers 55 and older in the U.S. Workers 75 and older are the fastest-growing age segment of the workforce.

While some older workers are making good money, feathering their retirement nests and enjoying comfortable jobs senators, corporate executives, lawyers millions are stuck in low-paying, physically demanding and dangerous jobs at which they have little if any voice or power.
Older workers are closing the earnings gap with their younger counterparts, not because employers suddenly prize age and experience more than they did in the 1980s, but because older workers are ramping up their hours to meet financial needs, as highlighted by Pew Research.
When retirement security declines, so does older workers bargaining position to demand good wages and conditions. Employers know that more older people must keep working, even with less favorable wages, hours and conditions. My research shows that at least two-thirds of workers 62 and older are working because they dont have enough money to retire.

Workers over age 55 are disproportionately represented in jobs that are lower-paid and physically demanding: 31% of home health and personal-care workers and 34% of janitors are over 55, while older workers make up 23% of the overall workforce.
This grim picture is on track to get worse. Most of the fastest-growing jobs in the U.S. economy, such as in healthcare and software engineering, are unlikely to benefit older workers. (The software sector has a median age of 38, while the wider workforce median age is 42.) Many of the jobs in healthcare are low-paid, physically taxing work that may not be a good fit for most people in their 60s or 70s.
Paradoxically, even as many older folks need to keep working to make ends meet, most people 62-70 are not able to work for a host of reasons and will retire with inadequate incomes or savings. As the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis reported in 2019: Between the years 2010 to 2018, 55.3 percent of workers aged 55 and up in the bottom half of the income distribution were forced to leave the workforce because of layoffs, plant closings, age discrimination, poor health, and family concerns.

And yet, the work longer mantra persists; the Economist magazine featured a headline last month that trumpeted: Why you should never retire. That may have benefits for the economy when the labor market is tight, but the nation should not depend on people working longer to make up for inadequate retirement-income security. This only exacerbates inequalities in wealth, health, well-being and retirement time.
Working until you drop is not a civilized plan for a civilized society. We desperately need a Gray New Deal that improves jobs for older workers while also restoring and boosting pensions and retirement security. Federal and state incentives should promote better-paying and age-appropriate work. Improved job training and stronger unions would also make a difference.
An Older Workers Bureau at the Department of Labor could help steer and support such efforts. Strengthening pensions would help ensure that older workers get better wages and conditions and are working by choice rather than necessity. We need subsidized guaranteed retirement accounts and advance-funded pensions, and an expanded Social Security system.

Maybe the boomers will vote for UBI when they all start realizing they can't work forever? Or are they already rich and retired?

I want to be dead by the time I'm 60 so I don't have to try & work out retirement

My mother didn't finally retire until Covid forced her to, about 6 months short of turning 70.

willythemailboy posted...

My mother didn't finally retire until Covid forced her to, about 6 months short of turning 70.

how is she doing? did it workout?

There's plenty of money out there, we just need to take it from those who have it all.

I hate the thought of not working

Well that makes one of us. Personally, almost twenty years working in retail / customer service type jobs has been plenty. Its more than plenty lmao. If I was told I didnt have to work ever again, Id be the happiest motherfucker on this planet.

rexcrk posted...

I hate the thought of not working

Well that makes one of us. Personally, almost twenty years working in retail / customer service type jobs has been plenty. Its more than plenty lmao. If I was told I didnt have to work ever again, Id be the happiest motherfucker on this planet.

It is absolutely insane to me that there are old people that put off retiring or get depressed after retiring because they're no longer working. FUCK work lmao

WingsOfGood posted...

how is she doing? did it workout?

Yeah, she could have retired any time she liked she just didn't want to. Then she had to to keep from exposing herself and my dad to Covid. Didn't help, both of them caught it and dad had long Covid for about six months but they're doing fine now.

That is dystopian as fuck.

DarthAragorn posted...

It is absolutely insane to me that there are old people that put off retiring or get depressed after retiring because they're no longer working. FUCK work lmao

A lot of people have little to no social interaction outside of work. Like my dad doesn't leave the house more than once or twice a week unless he has to go to the doctor or something.

I'm trying to navigate my mom's retirement. She retired before 65, with like nothing apart from SS. There are some reasons I can understand how that came to be, but on a relative scale to people still working regardless at older age (some grinding awful jobs perhaps), there is a bit of a distaste while now she's kinda become a financial dependent.

DarthAragorn posted...

It is absolutely insane to me that there are old people that put off retiring or get depressed after retiring because they're no longer working. FUCK work lmao

Gives them a sense of purpose and motivation each day. Some people like and need that structure.

DarthAragorn posted...

It is absolutely insane to me that there are old people that put off retiring or get depressed after retiring because they're no longer working. FUCK work lmao

Right? About ten years ago I got hurt at work and had to be out for a few months and, aside from the pain of course, it was absolutely amazing not having to go to work.

Sleeping as late as I wanted, didnt have the stress, didnt have to deal with incompetent management or asshole customers, wasnt spending my day hauling stuff around really awesome lol.

I truly feel bad for people who dont know how to entertain themselves without work. Its one thing if you genuinely love your job, but thats gotta be a really rare situation. Im talking about the people who have shit jobs and still would rather be there. What a bleak existence.

KaZooo posted...

I'm trying to navigate my mom's retirement. She retired before 65, with like nothing apart from SS. There are some reasons I can understand how that came to be, but on a relative scale to people still working regardless at older age (some grinding awful jobs perhaps), there is a bit of a distaste while now she's kinda become a financial dependent.

I'm in a similar situation, though my Mom will only be 59 this year and had barely any savings and can't hold a job. I recently learned that she should qualify for survivor's benefits at age 60 from my Dad though who died young but worked two jobs for many years. He didn't save anything but even a portion of his benefit should be enough to tide her over until she can collect her own benefit if it's more. I guess we'll have to have the SS office give us an estimate to see if that makes sense.

Returning_CEmen posted...

Gives them a sense of purpose and motivation each day. Some people like and need that structure.

This. Stewing in the house forever is a sure fire path to depression and possibly substance abuse. Retiring is great, especially if it means leaving behind a shitty job, but its not automatically a key to happiness.

Hell no one knows more about sitting around drinking and playing games all day than me, and even Im feeling like Im stuck in a rut and need excuses to leave the house. But no one will hire me so I dont really have much choice.

I'm surprised die early wasn't the solution.

Working isn't a bad thing. Retirement isn't going to exist for millenials but Gen X has a chance.

The issue is they don't have a choice

I work with Medicare folk and retiring before 65 is generally a bad idea if you can avoid it. You have to live longer on less.

I wonder where they got $600,000 figure from? I was always taught you should have $2 million to retire comfortably (at retirement age)

Retirement is only a possibility if you have a paid off home, dual SS/pensions and no dependents. But with houses out of reach for most, this is only going to get worse.

the 600k is just for food, medicine, and shelter not to be comfortable

JuanCarlos1 posted...

Retirement is only a possibility if you have a paid off home, dual SS/pensions and no dependents. But with houses out of reach for most, this is only going to get worse.

Yeah idk how renters are supposed to retire

I wonder what will happen to those that cannot work anymore

guess the homeless population will increase?

AzNDarkSamurai posted...

I wonder what will happen to those that cannot work anymore

guess the homeless population will increase?

What? No! Who would evict a senior citizen that's been a solid tenant for years just because they lost their job? Or foreclose on someone 29 years in to their mortgage just because they had a medical issue?

Who could imagine living in that sort of world?

DnDer posted...

What? No! Who would evict a senior citizen that's been a solid tenant for years just because they lost their job? Or foreclose on someone 29 years in to their mortgage just because they had a medical issue?

Who could imagine living in that sort of world?

I know, right? We also live in a world where shops would just give out free groceries to federal workers during a government shutdown. Everything's fine.