Working to Death: American worker can ask: “Do I have to work until death?”

[lovuian]

Sadly, for an increasing number of Americans, the idea of retirement at age 62 to a life rich with adventures and the once-held American dream of “Golden Years” has turned into cardboard, or worse.
Mass consumption Home Improvement Loans and HELOCs.
The soaring divorce rates of recent years.
Inter-government “investment” of Social Security.
Long-term inflation by the Federal Reserve.
Soaring healthcare costs.
Serial market declines.
Pension fund bankruptcies and shortages.
A 2010 paper by the Census Bureau (“Can Americans Afford to Retire?”) sums up the paradox this way:

“This seemingly paradoxical result can be explained by the fact maintaining pre-retirement standard of living might be more difficult for higher income groups. In addition, the top third includes people with median earnings of $100,000, which means that the households that fall into the top third category are not necessarily well-off (Munnell, et. Al., 2006).

More importantly, we believe this result could very well be due to omission of housing from our calculation of wealth. Likewise, we believe that once we take housing into account in our calculations of replacement rates, this result will be drastically different.”

http://www.strategic-living.net/index.php/2012/04/14/working-to-death/

[gratuitous]

1. Work until death? Of course not!

Take that last hour off. Without pay, naturally.

[jberryhill]

2. No. Death is hardly a good reason to slack off

[Fumesucker]

3. Only if your company has dead peasant insurance..

Otherwise you are not authorized to die..

[RebelOne]

4. I thought I would be working until I died,

but I was laid off in 2010 just after I turned 71. It was not because of my age. I was the copy editor, and 2 editors and even my boss, the production manager, were laid off on the same day and they were all younger than me by 20 years. It was a large publishing company and they had to downsize. The company also discontinued publication of some of their magazines. If I had not been laid off, I would still be working.

Fortunately, I had been collecting social security and the company gave me a very generous severance package. I have some savings, but am now having to be frugal because I am living on social security alone.