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Get Ready to Reduce Retirement Expenses
Tweet Share on Facebook March 16, 2010 CommentMany Americans haven’t saved enough to finance more than a year or two of retirement. Some 42 percent of workers age 45 and older have total savings and investments worth less than $25,000, excluding the value of their home and traditional pension plan, according to a recent Employee Benefit Research Institute survey.
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Saving for Retirement Beyond a 401(k)
Tweet Share on Facebook March 15, 2010 CommentMost workers do at least some of their retirement saving outside of a 401(k). Only 14 percent of current workers save for retirement using only an employer-sponsored retirement account, according to a recent survey of 1,067 employees by Principal Financial Group and Harris Interactive. Most worker’s (53 percent) current 401(k) balance is less than half of their total retirement savings. Another 22 percent of the employees surveyed have at least some money earmarked for retirement outside their workplace retirement account.
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Estimating Retirement Medical Expenses
Tweet Share on Facebook March 12, 2010 Comment (2)A typical 65-year-old married couple will need $197,000 to pay for medical costs throughout retirement including insurance premiums, out-of-pocket costs, and home health care expenses, according to new calculations by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. That figure doesn’t even include nursing home care. When potential long-term care costs are factored in, the figure a typical couple may be responsible for increases to $260,000, with a 5 percent chance of exceeding $570,000, according to the study, which was underwritten by Prudential.
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How Changing Jobs Affects Your Retirement Savings
Tweet Share on Facebook March 10, 2010 CommentFrequently switching jobs can make it more difficult to save for retirement. If you don’t stay with the company for a specified number of years, you may not be able to take any or only a fraction of the 401(k) match with you when you leave. There may also be a waiting period before you can join a new company’s 401(k). Unless workers take the initiative to set up their own retirement accounts or other investments, they probably aren’t saving for retirement during that time.
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5 Ways Retirement Expectations Are Changing
Tweet Share on Facebook March 9, 2010 CommentFew Americans have great expectations for their retirement. Just 16 percent of current workers say they are very confident about having enough money for a comfortable retirement, according to an Employee Benefit Research Institute and Mathew Greenwald and Associates survey released today. “Americans’ attitudes toward retirement have clearly tracked the economy the last couple of years, and that seems to be the case in 2010,” said Jack VanDerhei, EBRI research director and co-author of the survey. Even fewer workers feel confident about being able to pay for medical expenses throughout retirement (12 percent) or long-term care costs (10 percent). Here is a look at how Americans have changed their retirement plans since the recession began.
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Setting a Retirement Savings Goal
Tweet Share on Facebook March 8, 2010 CommentMost Americans aren’t savings as much for retirement as they think they should. The most common amount to save in a 401(k) is between 1 and 9 percent of pay, according to a recent Charles Schwab and Kelton Research survey. But while 40 percent of workers say they are tucking away that amount from each paycheck, only 24 percent of employees think that is the ideal amount to save for retirement.
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Older Worker Unemployment Soars Over a Decade
Tweet Share on Facebook March 5, 2010 CommentThe 21st century has not been kind to older workers. The number of unemployed Americans age 55 and older has increased 331 percent between January 2000 and December 2009, according to a new AARP Public Policy Institute analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Unemployment increased by 235 percent for those age 65 and older.
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Senate Rejects $250 Social Security Boost
Tweet Share on Facebook March 4, 2010 Comment (55)Retirees will not receive an extra $250 Social Security payment this year. The Senate voted 47 to 50 yesterday against sending seniors an additional one-time check.
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Most Older Workers Have a Younger Boss
Tweet Share on Facebook March 2, 2010 CommentMany Americans now work for a younger manager. Just over half (53 percent) of workers age 45 and older and 69 percent of employees age 55 and older have a supervisor who is younger than them, a recent CareerBuilder survey of 5,231 full time employees found.
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Labor Department Announces New Retirement Account Rules
Tweet Share on Facebook March 1, 2010 CommentThe U.S. Department of Labor announced two new regulations last week intended to increase retirement account transparency. "These rules will strengthen America's private retirement system by ensuring workers get good, objective information,” says U.S. Deputy Secretary of Labor Seth Harris. “When that happens, workers make the kind of decisions that are good for their families and the nation as the whole."
