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Average Retirement Age In America Hits Record High
The average age at which U.S. retirees report retiring is 62, the highest Gallup has found since first asking Americans this question in 1991.
While not a total surprise, given our previous discussion of the rise in employment that is so focused on the elder cohorts of society as they smash headlong into the realization that they have no retirement plan.
As we pointed out here, the typical worker near retirement only has about 2 years of replacement income saved, or about 15 years short of the median lifespan post-retirement.
What is perhaps more worrisome is the rapid rise that Gallup notes in the last few years, as we have pointed out in the past that in fact, over 60% of workers accumulated more debt than they contributed to retirement savings between 2010 and 2011.
As Gallup concludes,
Retirement age may be increasing because many baby boomers are reluctant to retire. Older Americans may also be delaying retirement because of lost savings during the Great Recession or because of insufficient savings even before the economic downturn.
But optimism remains... until it's too late...
The majority of all age groups expect to retire at age 65 or older. This includes 62% of 18- to 29-year-olds, 62% of 30- to 49-year-olds, and 58% of 50- to 64-year-olds. At the same time, an optimistic 15% of the youngest age group expect to retire before age 60. Adults closer to that age are naturally less likely to think they will be ready for retirement by that point.
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Repeat after me boomers: "Welcome to Walmart."
Does it count as retirement if you're on welfare your whole life?
Well yeah. This poll is from cops fire depts city and fed workers
Tell Gallop to call the rest of us
In my mid 60s, I never had any illusions about retiring.
Even in the 80s, I knew "COMFORTABLE RETIREMENT" was a bullshit fairytale being pedaled by Wall Street. I'll work until I die. No problem!
My father was an 82nd Airborne Vet of WW11. I was a Marine during Viet Nam. Nobody promised us a Rose Garden.
Like you "I'll retire when I expire".
Better to burn out than to rust.
What the fuck ever dude, lmao
Thank you for your service Gringo Viejo. My father was also a Marine during Viet Nam, he did three tours.
3 was a shitload. Each, a 12 month commitment.
God Bless your father my brother. It was a brutal time.
Had a friend that wanted to go for his 4th Tour,
"they" put him in the Psyche Ward @ Bethesda.
I had a friend who wanted to do a 3rd tour in Nam, but the feds paid him more to go to South America and kill bad people there. You know, still fightin' for freedom, but "off the books".
.... more like Welcome to Dollar Store
Way its going you're going to have to go through metal detector first before you get in the 10 Yuan store.
Baby Boomers are getting in the way of this recovery. Step aside grandpa and watch Gen-X win WWIII
lol...ahhh, the impetuousness & braggadocio of youth.
Life lesson number one young man, old men start the wars, young men die in them. Be careful what you wish for.
If we start counting college grads that can't get jobs as retired the avg retirement age will be around 40 and we have reached societal nirvana.
Every able bodied man will be issued a game controller and a case of Cool Ranch Doritos for the fight!
Retirement. What is that?
Retirement is when citizens of rich countries like Canada, Australia, and so on get to stop working for a paychecking in their 50s or 60s and live off their savings and investment. They can move to better climates, pursue hobbies, and spend time with fmaily. It really is a nice way to wrap life up.
People from poor countries like Somalia and America rarely get to retire.
The way things are going retirement is the last thing they will be worried about. Surviving the chaos the the fucks in power seemingly hell bent on throwing the world into will take precedence over relaxing on a sunny beach in twin bathtubs next to your too sexy for her age wife.
I'm gonna work till I drop dead, just to piss off the young bastards who can't do my job better and take it ;-)
Not me. The way I figure it the whole system is going to blow up and I'll be out of a job, so I'm buying up as much tangible wealth transferring and protection as I can. I figure I'll be living off the land in my near future.
Excellent article and begs to ask the simple editorial question:
Clearly the "population bomb" that everyone was pumping at policy / banks in the 1970's never happened. So, what happens next ? If we look at Japan and S.Korea, wealth consolidation in the older brackets leads to job entrenchment / lack of social mobility. Broken labour and new debited graduates can not afford to leave the country due to the cost of immigration but also can not afford to develop new ideas capable of building new products due to the lack of applied science risk capital (ie: anything not a app / clickbait).
ZH has seen and reported on the leading indicators this level of rot is creeping (or taken root) in the core applied sciences in NATO countries over the last 4 years, amid mixed economic signals. At this rate, if Yellen bumps the rate; we may very well be smack in the middle of a 1996 Japan-like double dip.
On another note, a simple question people should be asking is "why" are youth not building families in these high-education economies ? Is it because Debt prevents them from having the "nest" capital to make babies ? or is the economic incentives to being an entrepenuer skewed towards end of life gains, where child bearing ages are long past due ?
Why did the baby boomer generation despite very divergent cultural norms in Korea, USA, Japan and the USSR all decide personal consumption over generational survial and heriditary wealth effect ?
I got nothing.
"Why did the baby boomer generation despite very divergent cultural norms in Korea, USA, Japan and the USSR all decide personal consumption over generational survial and heriditary wealth effect ?"
Cheap energy and efficiencies in labor allowed them to. Now the days of cheap energy is behind us and that only leaves labor efficiencies. Once we are all replaced by robots that leaves...........?
"Why did the baby boomer generation despite very divergent cultural norms in Korea, USA, Japan and the USSR all decide personal consumption over generational survial and heriditary wealth effect ?"
Advertising. They were sold this. Baby boomers are the first generation raised on television, and they were given a reference of "normal" that was well beyond sustainability, because that level of success is the american way, etc etc.
Excellent observation. Madison Ave bears a great deal of responsibility for the values we have as a culture. Not that they give a crap what they did.
Lord Kenneth Clark (of the "Civilisation" television series, circa 1970) was asked during an on-air interview what the most important cause might be, of civilisations' recent trials, tragedies and pratfalls. He reflected for about three seconds, and answered in one word:
Advertising
Since so many of us peasants lack annuities, government pensions, employer pension plans, and don't even work for "companies", how can they tell when we "retire"?
When there are no jobs, or only McJobs, or anything extra you earn is taxed away,,,why work? "Retire"!
This is soooooo...1960s...
With the dwindling quality in the replacement workforce, retirees can look forward to live-in nurses that mix up your feeding and waste tubes, leaving you to your fate as they peddle your medications to "friends" that they've invited over for a party.
Just kidding, there won't be any retirement, just survival.
Retirement=Experiment.
I expect to have my Phd when I turn 65 so I can retire from college -- from being a student.
I consider myself fortunate to have pulled off retirement at 55. It wasn't planned but forced by the downturn in the economy. My dream actually was to reduce my working week from six to seven to four days a week. I had specific asset accumulation goals that once met, I was going to turn it down a notch. I never reached that goal but ended up going from a planned 4 days a week to none. Yeah, I live very close financially, much tighter than I'd ever imagined I'd be. And I live very simple. But I'm happier that I ever was working, and I absolutely loved my job.
Of course, mine isn't the storybook retirement. Every day I make an effort to produce, just like my working days. I hone my gardening skills. I can/dehydrate/freeze my produce. I improve my property value. I never miss a chance to flip something on craigslist or ebay. It keeps it all interesting.
The most interesting aspect is going from the central cog of a small commercial operation where I was on call and interacting with people 24/7 to living all by myself a couple hundred miles from my old stomping ground. My human interaction is extremely limited. I can go for weeks/months at a time with the only interaction being my weekly jaunts into town to buy supplies. It has been an interesting journey.
Expatriate. I've convinced my significant other that its the way to go and I for one can't wait to exit the police state. Stayed abroad for over a year and realized from afar how corrupt and warlike the US .gov is. Anxious to give .gov the permanent middle finger.
Good luck wherever you go. I'm stuck here in Indiana, which isn't too bad. At least they don't fuck around with the gun owners.
That's a remarkable gap between expected @ 65 and actual @ 62, especially in retrospect. Here we've been told that people NEVER retire if they have any choice, at least not before 70 1/2, but the actual is 62, the minimum SSN age? Maybe this includes a lot of semi-disabled people, are they forced to declare complete retirement at 62?
I'm getting into this myself, and the job market is so sucky that I'm thinking I need to capitulate and lower my salary and standards, if I'm going to work at all. I have enough saved to get by, I think, but I'd prefer to work another 5 to 10 years. Maybe I can get a job handing out QE funds, and take a small commission for the honor.
Ya whatever but did you hear about the racist nba owner?
I know plenty of well-to-do boomers. The baby boomer generation totally destroyed this country, big time. I was there in their wake and it stunk very badly. What a bunch of self-indulgent loud mouth jackasses.
The schools are now nothing more than commie indoctrination centers. The government has grown enormously. The Republican boomers cheered when our jobs were sent overseas; now there will be no retirement for anyone in private industry anymore. We have a growing police state. The banksters have stolen just about everything that isn't nailed down, and they are selling the rest to foreign interests. All of the millions of laws and policies dealing with race or ethnicity are heavily stacked against the children of the people who built this country, and those children will shortly be a minority. Those now rich retirees retreat behind guarded walls, killing what's left of society or community.
I will never be able to retire and my children will be forced to live in this 3rd world shithole police state formerly known as 'merica. To top it off, the baby boomers blame everyone but themselves, as always. Fuck those rich baby boomers, fuck them to hell.
>> the baby boomers blame everyone but themselves,
Best I can tell, that's what you are doing.
Speaking as one who is surrounded by those smug, feckless jackasses, I freely admit that I am bitter. They are older and should have been teachers and leaders. Instead they were mostly self-indulgent pigs. They ignored and abandoned their duties as stewards and teachers and mentors. Today we have to fight against them as they are determined to keep the ship on course toward the icebergs and won't let go of the controls.
The effect of 100 years of Bolshevik control of America.
Slaves don't get to retire.
Here's why ... no secret, it is just kept out of sight of the brainwashed:
http://patrick.net/forum/?p=1230886
"The average age at which U.S. retirees report retiring is 62,"
God forbid you actually WORK for a fucking living. You lazy fucks. My grandmother retired some time around age 60 and died at age 87. That means 31% of her entire life was retirement. It also means 39% of her adult life was retirement. This is why the country and union pensions are all bankrupt. This is why GM, US Steel, and Bethlehem Steel went bankrupt. We can't have people retiring around age 55 then being on welfare for the next 25 years.
Btw the retirement age means nothing. Half of my coworkers are retired, but they still work. They left their previous jobs so they could collect giant pensions, but they got a job at my company so they can still pull in 6 figures since they have very high level jobs.
Retirement is a quaint idea, instilled in the masses by decades of subservient brainwashing. Better to recognize that your life is meant to be a contribution to the betterment of all mankind, than to imagine you have completed the journey and now are deserving of what you perceive as your just dues. Involve yourself in a work that is good for you and all others, and you shall never spend a single moment wasted on what you shall do when you “retire”.
PS- The earlier you start, the better.
The young can't find jobs. The old can't retire. Why is it so hard to rectify this problem?
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UIC Faculty members to get a 6.75% rasie effective 2015. For all who read this please forgive me in advance. I was born in 1955. Dad was a mechanic, mom washed dishes in a nursing home. 7 kids in a 3 bedroom home with one bathroom with five of those nine people being female counting mom. Among many other things we were taught two stay with me to this day. Respect everyone. Work hard and smart. Thanks mom AND dad. I am damn sick and tired of baby boomers being blamed for everything in this country that is wrong. I grew up in West Michigan. I began picking fruit summers with my other siblings to earn money at the age of 12. At 14 I was baby sitting two small boys after school from 4 to 12 for a single mom. 5 bucks a night in 1969, big money. At 15 during school year bagging groceries. 16 through remainder of high school short order cook in restaurant. 4 to 1130 home in bed at midnight. Up for school at 530. I made the golf team as a junior and told dad. We all bought our own school clothes and contributed to family budget. He looked at me and asked if I could make a living golfing when I told him I had to give up the restaurant job for the team. Enough said. There was no arguing. See, our family didn't run on feelings and warm fuzzies, no golf team. Graduated at age 17 end of May. Late June month later signed a lease on an apartment and had my own bedroom. I have cut meat,, worked on slaughter house kill floor, hung drywall, am an executive chef, have been a business owner, managed restaurants and country club kitchens, started ran and sold a successful business, sold, managed and trained sales reps and currently work selling products in a straight commission. I missed Vietnam by one year. I would have gone and had many friends from the neighoborhood who did. At ninteen I got hit by a drunk driver who cracked 8 of my ribs on my steering wheel. I could not lift a quarter of beef for my job so I was replaced. I picked apples that fall to pay my bills with 8 cracked ribs. I am weary and honestly more saddened than angry. See, somewhere, somehow we have quit raising our children right. Work is not only required it is rewarding. Today I don't see that work ethic. I have interviewed and never hired a fresh college graduate who never worked a day during his college career. Don't blame me. Don't blame an age group. You want politics to change run for office yourself. You want change? Go out and make it happen. Don't blame me. I will retire when I draw my last breathe or am unable to physically work. Work is a four letter word but a job, any job, is honorable. By the way, I don't leave a Christmas gift for my mail man, I leave one for my trash man. Again, forgive me for my rant. Do I feel better? Some. I didn't build this country but I sure as hell haven't taken more than I contributed. 6.75% raise? Really? More taxes here in Illinois. Yeah