Retire ? Ha ! The new reality of old age in America (WaPo)
September 29, 2017 11:16 AM
Mary Jordan and Kevin Sullivan / The Washington Post
Richard Dever had swabbed the campground shower stalls and emptied 20 garbage cans, and now he climbed slowly onto a John Deere mower to cut a couple acres of grass.
Im going to work until I die, if I can, because I need the money, said Mr. Dever, 74, who drove 1,400 miles to this Maine campground from his home in Indiana to take a temporary job that pays $10 an hour.
Mr. Dever shifted gently in the tractor seat, a rubber cushion carefully positioned to ease the bursitis in his hip a snapshot of the new reality of old age in America.
People are living longer, more expensive lives, often without much of a safety net. As a result, record numbers of Americans older than 65 are working now nearly 1 in 5. That proportion has risen steadily over the past decade, and at a far faster rate than any other age group. Today, 9 million senior citizens work, compared with 4 million in 2000.
While some work by choice rather than need, millions of others are entering their golden years with alarmingly fragile finances. Fundamental changes in the U.S. retirement system have shifted responsibility for saving from the employer to the worker, exacerbating the nations rich-poor divide. Two recent recessions have devastated personal savings. And at a time when 10,000 baby boomers are turning 65 every day, Social Security benefits have lost about a third of their purchasing power since 2000.
***
more: http://www.post-gazette.com/aging-edge/aging-edge-reports/2017/09/29/The-new-reality-of-old-age-in-America/stories/201709290132
Skittles
(153,169 posts)WTF
Zorro
(15,740 posts)and now figure out he's not going to be riding to their rescue.
Yet they still make excuses to justify their poor voting decision. I just think hes not going to be helping the lower class as much as he thought he would. Fools.
The story is compelling, but when I got to the point of learning for whom they voted, I had a few choice words for them.
inanna
(3,547 posts)Not just in America.
I am very fortunate to have recently landed a better job that includes a federal pension. It was like winning the lottery here (in Canada). But it comes at a fairly late stage in my life (I'm late forties now...)
Many people here will never be able to retire the way their parents did. And it makes me very sad.
NOBODY should have to work in their senior years unless they absolutely want to.