The New York Fed’s research department just reported a major shift in retirement expectations. Workers in 2024 are less likely to plan to work full time in their 60s than workers before the pandemic, according to responses to the Survey of Consumer Expectations (SCE) Labor Market Survey.
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Hence, “Plan Steve” to force able bodied geezers back to work, dressed up as “saving Social Security”.
/sarcasm
Steve
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You wonder where they are getting the resources. 62 year olds were born in the 1960s. Entered the workforce in the 1980s. Probably few have pensions. Is the 401k people? Or they find Social Security generous?
How do they rank on home ownership? Or savings rates?
Hand the “c”-level execs shovels and them to start digging. Because saving Social Security starts with THEM.
Born in the mid 60s, they would have been in college in the early/mid 80s. College was still relatively affordable, compared to now, so they may have not been debt slaves on graduation day. That would help them put money aside for retirement.
Of course there is the other “Plan Steve” to “save Social Security”: make extreme demands for proof of citizenship to claim benefits, with the dual objective of cutting outflow, and forcing people to keep working. I found my maternal grandfather’s parent’s names, but a certified Illinois birth certificate is only available to the person on the certificate, his parents, or guardian, so I don’t qualify. Illinois makes non-certified certificates available for genealogical research but non-certified doesn’t satisfy Mr Law, when he wants to say “NO”, to “make sure no illegals receive benefits”.
Steve
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I am but one data point, and probably atypical. My wife and I were born in 1962. No pensions, but we did max out on 401k plans and Roth IRAs throughout our respective careers. She had higher earnings and worked more years than I. We retired early. Our retirement income or spending money thus far has come from a combination of IRA distributions and spending down savings and after tax investments.I start taking Social Security this year at the earliest opportunity. My wife will wait until full retirement age or later. Looks like we have plenty of assets, but that is because we planned for retirement starting a long time ago and didn’t have too much adversity to deal with.
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The cohort is small, but the path is pretty clear. If you entered the workforce in the 1990s and contributed say, 15% of your income to your 401(k) (including employer match if there was one) and simply bought low cost index funds, you should be well into seven figure net worth by now, and probably have substantial home equity as well. That’s true even if you never had particularly high income.
I’m a little younger than that but in talking with my friends quite a number are in that latter category. Some would be but for life events (divorce, etc). And some are panicking because they don’t have much saved and time is running out.
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