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Is Retirement About To Retire?


Remember Retirement?

Remember the rotary phone, life before remote controls, micro-wave ovens or Viagra ? Are we about to say "remember retirement"?

Last year a resident of an upscale Independent Living community I managed requested a private and somewhat urgent meeting with me. It was important for him to explain in person why he and his wife were giving their 30 day notice to move out. He said "we worked hard, were successful and invested well, but never expected to live this long or for our investments to crash. We are running out of money and can't afford to live here anymore". "I may have to find a part-time job".

That was the first of many conversations like this one and prompted me to take a look into several factors likely to affect retirement as we know it today.

Only 11 percent of Baby Boomers are planning to stop working entirely when they reach retirement age. About 9 percent of Baby Boomers we be affluent (defined as having a pre-tax income greater than $100,000 if retired). One quarter of Boomers have no savings or investments at all.  Life expectancy continues to increase.

Employers have cut back their defined benefit and retiree medical plans to respond to cost pressures and excessive regulation. We don't have the generous retirement benefits of previous generations and we are not saving enough to fund retirement.

It’s inevitable that Social Security and Medicare benefits will be reduced in some way, to respond to the large number of baby boomers who will be retiring in 10 to 20 years. The long term affects of the Affordable Care Act are still unclear.

Is it possible we will allow the reward for a lifetime of hard work and good stewardship to die a slow and painful death or will it simply look different?



Rick D Watkins

 How are you treating life?

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