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Fidelity: Couples Need $230,000 for Retirement Health Costs
Tweet Share on Facebook March 31, 2011 Comment (2)A 65-year-old couple retiring this year will need $230,000 to pay for medical care throughout retirement, according to a Fidelity Investments estimate released today. Expected health care costs have declined 8 percent from last year’s estimate of $250,000 due to health reform legislation passed in 2010. This is the first time retiree health costs have decreased since Fidelity estimated that seniors would need $160,000 to pay for retirement medical expenses in 2002.
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The New Life Stage Between Midlife and Retirement
Tweet Share on Facebook March 30, 2011 Comment (1)The baby boomers redefined each stage of life as they passed through it. And now they are on the verge of reinventing the meaning of old age and retirement. Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of Civic Ventures, argues that we need a new life stage, encore adulthood, between midlife and old age in his new book, The Big Shift: Navigating the New Stage Beyond Midlife. U.S. News asked Freedman about how this new map of work and retirement will unfold. Excerpts:
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Investors Whose 401(k)s Recovered Fastest
Tweet Share on Facebook March 28, 2011 Comment (1)Almost everyone now has a bigger nest egg than they did in 2005. The median Vanguard 401(k) balance plunged from $23,851 in 2005 to just $17,399 in 2007. But the stock market recovery and continued saving pushed the median balance back up to $26,926 at the end of 2010, which is 13 percent more than 401(k) participants had in 2005. However, some people have seen much more significant gains in their 401(k) plans while a few stragglers are just barely ahead or even behind where they were five years ago. Here’s a look at who has recovered best and fastest.
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Baby Boomers Reveal Biggest Retirement Fears
Tweet Share on Facebook March 25, 2011 Comment (1)Many baby boomers are dreaming about a retirement filled with traveling, taking up hobbies, or simply spending more time with family and friends. But they also fear that this dream will be disrupted by financial and health problems. AARP recently asked Americans age 50 and older to describe their biggest retirement worries. Here are the top reasons thinking about retirement keeps many baby boomers and seniors awake at night.
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4 New Benefits for Medicare Recipients
Tweet Share on Facebook March 24, 2011 Comment (2)The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services mailed $250 rebate checks totaling nearly $1 billion to almost 3.8 million Medicare recipients with high prescription drug costs in 2010. Medicare Part D recipients who spent more than $2,830 out-of-pocket were automatically mailed the one-time payments provided to seniors by The Affordable Care Act.
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Retiree Health Plans Collect $535 Million
Tweet Share on Facebook March 22, 2011 Comment (4)More than 5,000 employers who maintain health care coverage for early retirees have collected $535 million from the federal government through the Early Retiree Reinsurance Program. The health reform bill promised up to $5 billion worth of subsidizes to employers that provide health insurance to retirees age 55 and older who are not yet eligible for Medicare. The program will reimburse employers for high retiree health care costs until health insurance exchanges become operational in 2014 or the funding is exhausted.
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How to Motivate Yourself to Save for Retirement
Tweet Share on Facebook March 18, 2011 Comment (2)It’s difficult to set aside a portion of our paychecks for the future when there are so many more immediate expenses clamoring for our limited paychecks. Building a nest egg is especially challenging when you don’t have an estimate of how much you will need and a plan to get there.
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The 5 Most Common Retirement Benefits
Tweet Share on Facebook March 17, 2011 Comment (4)Traditional pension and 401(k) participation picked up in 2010. There was a net gain of 53 pension plans and 5,207 401(k) and profit-sharing plans in fiscal year 2010, according to recently released Internal Revenue Service data. Over 1 million more people gained the ability to participate in a 401(k) last year when 6,747 new 401(k) and profit-sharing plans were created. However, 116,619 individuals lost the ability to defer taxes on their retirement savings at work when 1,540 401(k) plans were terminated. Here’s a look at the most popular types of retirement benefits in 2010.
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10 Reasons You Won’t be Able to Retire at 65
Tweet Share on Facebook March 15, 2011 Comment (4)Workers are more pessimistic than ever before about their retirement prospects. Employees feel less confident about their ability to retire than at any other point in the past two decades, according to the latest installment of a 21-year-old Employee Benefit Research Institute and Mathew Greenwald and Associates annual survey. But this pessimism about retirement could also be viewed as the first time employees have realistically assessed their retirement preparedness. “People are increasingly recognizing the level of savings realistically needed for a comfortable retirement,” says Jack VanDerhei, EBRI research director and co-author of the report. “Far too many people had false confidence in the past.” Here is why you probably won’t be able to retire at age 65.
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How Generation Y Benefits From Social Security
Tweet Share on Facebook March 11, 2011 Comment (9)The Social Security Administration hosted a webinar for 20-somethings yesterday about what Social Security is doing for young people. The program, entitled “Social Security 101: What’s in it for me?”, aimed to explain to workers under 30 what the 4.2 percent of their paychecks that are being withheld as FICA and OASDI taxes in 2011 are doing for them. Here are the services the Social Security program is providing to young workers.
