For Most, Retirement Is Somewhere Beyond the Horizon

I absolutely, positively plan to retire. Just don’t ask me when.

This, I gather, sums up the thinking of a majority of the older working population these days. We’ve reached this point for several reasons, and we each have our own circumstances and timelines.

Here are a few reasons people say they’ll keep working beyond the age when their parents and grandparents retired.

• I did not save for retirement.
• My retirement savings fell victim to the 2008 collapse.
• I overestimate what my Social Security will cover.
• I underestimated the impact of paying for my children’s college.
• The money I always thought I would inherit is going to my parents’ long-term care.
• I am supporting my parents as well as my live-at-home children whose recent college degrees have yet to yield sustainable employment.

Admittedly, this is depressing. Let’s move on to positive reasons people are postponing retirement.

• I love my job and I am still good at it.
• My employer still values my contribution to the company’s success.
• I am in good health and I am not bound by my chronological age; 60 is the new 50.
• I believe I would be happier working than not working.
• The longer I work the more financially secure I will be in retirement when the day comes.
• It’s not like I’m Shaquille O’Neal and ready for AARP.

I threw in that last one just to make sure you were paying attention.

Anyway, the struggling economy, rising costs, the loss of equity in homes and concerns about the future (the solvency of Social Security, in particular) have the vast majority of older Americans expecting to work longer. But there is more to the story.

I encourage you to spend about five minutes watching an informative discussion that aired on CNBC this week. The panel did a great job of addressing another layer of this dilemma: Older Americans fortunate enough to be hanging on to their jobs are undeniably having an impact on younger workers – especially recent college graduates – who are having difficulty finding jobs that get them started down a career path. Some argue that if older workers don’t “get out of the way,” we’re not going to see lower unemployment rates any time soon.

I can appreciate the post-graduate frustration, but I don’t think shoving people out of the way is the solution. In fact, one of the suggested ways to protect seniors is raising the minimum Social Security retirement age. That will keep more people paying into the system while delaying payments out of the fund.

When will you feel it’s “safe” to retire? The fascinating thing is that this is a topic for workers not just in their sixties, but it’s being talked about by people in their fifties and even their forties.

At least one thing is clear to me. It’s not a question of anyone getting out of the way. It’s about how we fix the system, fix the economy and get everyone back to work.