Poll:Americans Uneasy About Retirement

[cal04]

Millions of Americans are uneasy about their financial prospects in old age — a nervousness that complicates President Bush's uphill efforts to persuade them to accept dramatic changes he's proposing for Social Security .

Almost half of Americans who haven't retired say they don't think they're doing a good job of getting ready for that time in their lives, an Associated Press poll found. Many say they're not confident they'll have enough money to live comfortably after they quit working.


"People are trapped in a dilemma," said Robert Blendon, a polling expert at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "They know they're not saving enough. They can't count on Social Security and they're not sure these private accounts will be better. They're not sure what to do."


In this uneasy climate, Bush's plan to allow personal accounts within Social Security hasn't caught fire with the public. More than half of Americans, 55 percent, say they oppose his plan to create personal accounts, while 39 percent say they support it, according to the poll conducted for AP by Ipsos-Public Affairs. Support for the plan drops among Democrats and independents when it's described specifically as "President Bush's plan."



http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=4&u=/ap/20050228/ap_on_re_us/retirement_ap_poll

[liberal N proud]

1. That one was tough to figure out

With the moron in chief promising to take away any financial security in retirement.
I figure that by the time these crooks are finished, I will have to work until I die.
We can all become Wal-Mart door greeters.

[RobertSeattle]

2. support drops when described as ..."President Bush's plan"

Let us continue...
"President Bush's War"
"President Bush's Deficit"
...

[JDPriestly]

3. They've got reason to worry.

Nowadays, middle class people can't save enough to live comfortably in their senior years, and poor people can't save enough to live at all. And things are going to get worse.

Before the 1930s, most people lived in rural areas and either stayed with their children or went to "poor houses" or "old people's homes" after they became too old to do hard labor on the farm. They kept busy and useful, helping tend their grandchildren and the garden and feeding the chickens.

After the 1930s, people moved into cities to work in factories or for big companies that promised (and often delivered) pensions to their retired employees. Combining employers' pensions with Social Security, people could make it. The "Greatest Generation" has lived very well in their old age because the baby boomers paid huge amounts of money into Social Security. As an added bonus, interest rates were high in the early 1980s and the stock market did well in the late 1990s, so those seniors who had money socked away lived very well.

All of those sources of income for the elderly have dried up. Few people live on farms. Houses are too small and the big ones have been broken up into small apartments, so parents can't live with their children. People don't work in factory/union jobs, and even if they did, companies either don't give generous pensions, or were bought out by carnivorous conglomerates that ate the pension funds. Returns from interest and investments could barely feed a cat. And, well, we all know you can't live on Social Security -- at least not if you have to buy medicine or fix the roof.

People are right to be worried. So, you think you'll work as long as you live? Don't count on it. My mother tells me that the Walmart greeters in her town all have PhDs. Nobody else wants to hire them because they're too old for other jobs. I'm getting near retirement age, and I'm very pessimistic.

[asjr]

4. Private savings accounts should be elective--people who

have enough money have been saving for years. To take it out of Social Security is a gamble. I realize this is attractive to younger workers, but I do not think they understand what will happen. Anything Shrub advocates is just another rung on the downward spiral of this country. He doesn't understand SS either. He will not have to worry about his old age retirement. I am sure if he became desperate his corporative buddies would bail him out. Or not. I do not like the notion of "compromise" either. Once the compromising begins we do not know where it will stop. Here is where it becomes very politcal and we lose.

[sinkingfeeling]

5. One of the things that I've been thinking about is about a trade

for the sake of the 'next generation'. Right now, if you're married and have children, you get a $1000 per child tax credit (up to $110K income and there's some formula for the number of kids, etc.). Why not take that $1000 a year tax credit and put it directly into the 'Private Account' for that child? The parents, who of course, don't want to pass on all of this insecurity to their heirs, can forego the new TV and get less tax return dollars! The tax credit is applicable to age 17...then let those kids who want to, continue putting excess dollars into it. Leave SS alone and pass a bill that mandates government to honor the 'special' treasury bonds in the SS fund.

[MountainLaurel]

6. Uneasy hell!

Try scared shitless:

That someday a catastrophic medical problem like cancer (probably caused by all of the chemicals we've pumped into people for 60 years without knowing their long-term effects) or heart disease will pop up. That their company pension plan will disappear when the corporation files for bankruptcy (talk to WV steel workers and miners about that one).

[BiggJawn]

7. Retirement? What is this retirement they speak of?

Ah, yess, like my father is enjoying...He's doing good, extremely good, in fact...

I'll be working until I'm too decrepit to say "welcome to Wal-Mart" anymore, then out into the alley with me. At least until I get caught "stealing" stale burgers and rancid grease from the DUMPSTER behind Mickey Dee's, then I can get 3 hots and a cot in prison...

Fuck you, George Bush.

[Massachusetts]

14. "stale burgers and rancid grease"

"until I get caught "stealing" stale burgers and rancid grease from the DUMPSTER behind Mickey Dee's".

BiggJawn, better hurry, I'll be at that DUMPSTER first...where?...where?

[BiggJawn]

15. Used to be behind every one.

I dunno, maybe they get one of the kids...Oh, I'm dating myself, Kids don't work at macdunnalds anymore...Anyway, maybe somebody flushes them down the toilet to keep the homeless from "stealing" them from the dumpster...

When I wore the Paper Hat 30 years ago, we had a swing manager get fired because she was caught taking home the stuff from the bin that was "overtime" instead of putting it in the dumpster...

Greedy bastard, that Ray Krok...

[tom_paine]

8. That's Amerikans, not Amerikans

I really dislike it when the name of the Citizens of the Old Free America are mixed up with us, the Imperial Subjects of Amerika.

Free American defeated Hitler.

Imperial Subjects of Amerika are of the same mentality of those who allowed Hitler into power.

[lebkuchen]

9. Who can blame them? If they had two week's vacation, they were lucky

This part I don't get:

Almost half of Americans who haven't retired say they don't think they're doing a good job of getting ready for that time in their lives, an Associated Press poll found. Many say they're not confident they'll have enough money to live comfortably after they quit working.

Bush has been touting the financial savvy of future retirees and their ability to manage their own money for the last 4 years. How is it that Bush has more confidence in their ability to manage money than the future retirees have in themselves??

[jswordy]

11. The experiences of 401(k) owners show that...

...most people do not "wisely" invest those dollars.

There is a plethora of stuff that comes at a 401(k) owner, and it can be very difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff.

I would expect nothing less to happen if these so-called "personal accounts" become reality. All they do is move the SS money from safe govt. bonds to a riskier environment.

[jswordy]

10. What we don't want to discuss is...

...that people are having a hard time saving, not because of their largess and their personal spending weaknesses, but rather because their real standard of living is falling and their dollar is buying less and less while under-reported inflation eats away at their basic everyday needs. The average middle class American is slogging along with a real wage that is not keeping pace with the erosion of the dollar and the effects of inflation. Consequently, fewer dollars are available for that person to save.

We also seem unwilling to discuss the fact that raising the Social Security payment ceiling from the first $89,000 in earned income to the first $1 million in earned income would fully fund the system, provide for actual increases in benefits to retirees, lower the eligibility age to 60 or below (thus allowing more people to retire early and get SS benefits, opening jobs for younger workers and creating job market demand), and provide a superior source of funds for use in keeping our national debt afloat through S.S. bonds until it can again be paid down by surpluses.

We don't want to talk about thoise thigns, and especially the higher cap, because that higher cap would mean millionaires, the best buddies a politican can have, would be affected by having to pay more. Those who MOST CAN AFFORD IT would have to pay more, and that is unAmerican.

I constantly wonder how many more straws will be piled on the middle class camel's back before it breaks.

[lebkuchen]

12. NPR interviewed a woman in her sixties w/an ill husband

who suffered dimensia. This couple was over $20,000 in debt because her husband couldn't work, and although she had two jobs, working 65 hours a week, they couldn't afford to make the mortgage payment AND buy food, pay utility bills, doctor bills and purchase insurance. She was advised to get a third job to start paying off the credit card bills. She then listed all her own personal health issues and asked who would hire her.

What is so great about the US if you have to suffer like this in your retirement years despite your best efforts to make it otherwise? If life deals you a bad health hand in America, you're screwed.

[jswordy]

13. Agreed, we are all one major illness away from bankruptcy...

...and they are soon going to pass a bill to deny us that option! I guarantee you "Democrats" will vote for that bill, too...the same "Democrats" who refuse to come out and say what we need to do is raise the payment ceiling on SS.

Basically, there is hardly a national politician out there worth a bucket of warm snot, whatever party you pick. They all are in bed with the monied interests.

The only ones I hear talking AND walking like Democrats are Ted Kennedy and Howard Dean, and Kennedy is wobbly on No Child Left Behind. Most of the rest spew the rhetoric, but vote quite differently than they talk. They know the sound bite will play big, but the vote will be buried. Don't let them fool you, the GOP could not do this stuff without Democratic supprot.

The so-called "class action reform" bill, taking away the right of a claimant to have a trial judged by his or her peers and limiting the right of plaintiff to damage awards, passed in the Senate with 72 votes! YOU DO THE MATH! Yes, there were Democrats voting for it. Who is looking out for the rights of the victims these days?

Now I see Frist says he is out there building bipartisan support for an "asbestos reform bill" under which claims would be capped and those harmed because the companies they worked for did nothing while they knew for decades of an asbestos-cancer link will also face strictures on their medical care for the myriad conditions caused by the exposure.

The bill will be great news to the rich fat cats who suckered their employees into workling in dangerous conditions by simply not telling them what was scientifically known, all the while knowing what they were doing. Poor bastard employees, they were just not rich enough or smart enough to get out of that environment...too bad for them, huh?!?! And there will be Democratic support for this bill when it passes, as well.

I'm pretty tired of the duplicity in our party. I'm just not that dumb, to take that hook, line and sinker. I may have been born at night -- but it wasn't LAST NIGHT!

I want my party back.

[lebkuchen]

17. The politicians are clinging for dear life to their health benefits

They know it's a jungle out there in the real world, and RW insanity is on the IN list right now, one's ticket to ride to financial solvency, which fewer and fewer Americans are able to manage despite their best efforts.

The US is in "collapse" mode. I'm sure that was obvious to EU members as they listened to Bush's mindless prattle during his seven hour visit. They're cutting losses, but that won't be easy for American citizens to do, especially with the bankruptcy bill.

What that woman on NPR was experiencing would not happen in Europe, much of Asia, or Australia, and I assume Canada. I thought Kerry was very clear in his campaign message about the need to reform health care; that issue alone should have won him the presidency. Anybody who has the health, job and debt issues as the woman described above and yet still voted for Bush proves there's something worse than poor health: ignorance.

[Delphinus]

16. A third job?

How can a woman that age work 65 hours per week, care for a husband with dementia (a fulltime job for some), and then be expected to work a third job?

We're not dealing with the real issues here. This is sad.