After wading through a stack of scholarly studies about older Americans and debt, my read is that the researchers are plenty worried.
They’ve found that owing money is pushing people in their 60s and beyond to delay retirement, postpone filing for Social Security (so their eventual benefits will be higher) and add stress to their lives.
Ohio State University’s Donald Haurin, Cäzilla Loibl and Stephanie Moulton just released an especially fascinating paper on the relationship between debt and financial stress for older Americans. In it, they described what they found to be a hierarchy of debt, stress-wise.
Credit card debt, they noted, is the most stressful type, with the strongest impact on older adults’ working longer and delaying filing for Social Security. Stress resulting from a $1 increase in credit card debt, they said, is the equivalent of stress due to a $14 to $20 increase in mortgage debt.
via Forbes.
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Our education initiative, Delay & Gain, helps you with one of the most important decisions you’ll ever make: retirement.
Delayed claiming past the early retirement age of 62 results in bigger monthly benefit checks for life. Waiting until after the current full retirement age of 66 yields even greater gains — up to 44% more than early claiming.








