About half of private sector employers don’t offer a retirement plan. That means about a quarter of Americans retire on not much more than social security, even those who’ve worked all their lives.
via NPR.
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.
Assisted living seems like the solution to everyone’s worries about old age. It’s built on the dream that we can grow old while being self-reliant and live that way until we die. That all you need is a tiny bit of help. That you would never want to be warehoused in a nursing home with round-the-clock caregivers. This is a powerful concept in a country built on independence and self-reliance.
The problem is that for most of us, it’s a lie. And we are all complicit in keeping it alive.
The assisted living industry, for one, has a financial interest in sustaining a belief in this old-age nirvana. Originally designed for people who were mostly independent, assisted living facilities have nearly tripled in number in the past 20 years to about 30,000 today. It’s a lucrative business: Investors in these facilities have enjoyed annual returns of nearly 15 percent over the past five years — higher than for hotels, office, retail and apartments, according to the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care.
via New York Times.
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America’s long-term care crisis is worsening.
Long term care is something most of us will need as we grow older…
…Unfortunately, this type of care is extremely expensive, and for many Americans, downright unaffordable. Most seniors simply don’t have the average $100,000 a year for a nursing home, $45,000 for assisted living, or $33,000 for in-home care…
…With millions of seniors and their families struggling to acquire — or provide — much-needed long term care, the time to act is now.
It’s no secret that American workers face a major – and very real – retirement crisis. Wealth inequality and workplace changes have all but kicked-out two of the legs of the traditional retirement stool: pensions and private savings – both of which are at historic lows. More and more retirees have come to rely on the third leg of the stool, Social Security, for most of their income. (The average monthly Social Security benefit in New Jersey is about $1,500 or some $18,000 per year, only a few thousand dollars above the federal poverty line.)
Even with Social Security, nearly 7% of New Jersey seniors live in poverty. The good news is that workers can increase the size of their future Social Security checks by delaying retirement.
via NJ.com
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You can learn more from our education initiative, Delay & Gain, by clicking here.
Republicans in Congress have never been good at hiding their intentions to gut Social Security.
In recent years, GOP luminaries from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky down through Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and former House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin have talked about the need to slash “entitlements” because, you know, the cost of programs such as Social Security and Medicare is driving the federal deficit, leaving so little room for tax-cut handouts to the wealthy.
Now Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) has added her voice to the discussion, with an added fillip. During a town hall appearance in her home state over the weekend, Ernst said members of Congress should hold discussions about Social Security “behind closed doors.”
via Los Angeles Times.
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Sen. Joni Ernst wants to discuss changes to Social Security “behind closed doors.” A strategy for the GOP to hide their intentions in order to make benefit cuts.
Please sign our petition by clicking here.
The mother of all political battles is coming, and it’s about a wall.
No, not that one. It’s another, much bigger wall. One that fewer people are talking about — so far.
It’s the wall that Social Security is due to run into in just 15 years.
That’s when, say Social Security’s trustees, the program’s trust fund is scheduled to run out of money. If nothing else is done, they say, after 2034 Social Security’s annual income will only be enough to pay “about three-quarters of scheduled benefits.”
We’re talking about a 25% cut in payments.
via MarketWatch.
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We have called on Congress to BOOST Social Security benefits for all working Americans.
via twitter.
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Democratic Debates Must Include Social Security.
The National Committee hopes that all of the Democratic candidates favor revenue increases over benefit cuts, and are willing to support legislation like the Social Security 2100 Act. Rep. John Larson’s bill would keep Social Security fully solvent for the rest of the century while modestly boosting benefits, mostly by asking the wealthy to pay their fair share in payroll contributions.
It’s no secret that American workers face a major – and very real – retirement crisis. Wealth inequality and workplace changes have all but kicked out two of the legs of the traditional retirement stool: pensions and private savings – both of which are at historic lows.
More and more retirees have come to rely on the third leg of the stool, Social Security, for most of their income. (The average monthly Social Security benefit in New York State is about $1,450 or some $17,000 per year, only slightly above the federal poverty line.) Even with Social Security, 10% of New York’s seniors live in poverty. The good news is that workers can increase the size of their future Social Security checks by delaying retirement.
Read more from this op-ed by clicking here.
Our education initiative, Delay & Gain, made its way around many states this summer. We wanted to reach as many people as possible to help them with one of the most important decisions they’ll ever make – retirement.
Social Security is a compact between the generations that has worked for almost 85 years and will continue to provide Americans with baseline financial security in the future.