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Investors Scramble as Fed Extends Low Rate Policy
Tweet Share on Facebook January 31, 2012 CommentThe Federal Reserve has just extended its low interest-rate policy through the end of 2014. The central bank was widely praised for its extraordinary commitment to helping the economy recover.
But there was little, if any, cheering from investors and retirement experts who are looking at nearly three more years of dismal yields on bonds, CDS, and savings accounts.
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Reverse Mortgages: Big Potential, Small Results
Tweet Share on Facebook January 30, 2012 Comment (4)Reverse mortgages should be a breakout product of demographic destiny.
Millions of older Americans are hurtling toward very uncertain retirements. Survey after survey documents a serious lack of retirement planning and nest eggs too small to support even modestly comfortable retirements. Continued longevity gains are extending the retirements of many people to 20 and 30 years, if not longer. Government spending on seniors is threatened by budget deficits and conservative opposition to government programs.
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Why Consumers Struggle to Understand Healthcare
Tweet Share on Facebook January 27, 2012 CommentOlder patients, caregivers, and family members face growing challenges in understanding and navigating the nation's increasingly complex healthcare system. Consumer illiteracy, long applied to financial matters, also has become an enormous issue in healthcare.
[See 10 Things States Are Doing to Make Senior-Friendly Communities.]
Sophisticated drugs and dosages are more complicated. With many seniors being treated for multiple chronic diseases, there can be dangerous interactive effects of taking medications for these differing problems. Dealing with medical professionals is also often challenging. Consumers don't understand medical language and many healthcare professionals seem incapable of speaking in any other tongue.
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Posthumous Births: An Emerging Estate Challenge
Tweet Share on Facebook January 25, 2012 CommentMore than half a million cryopreserved embryos are now in storage somewhere in the United States. An unknown but far greater number of sperm donors have also made deposits that could be used for an expanding array of assisted reproductive technologies (ART). Putting aside any number of religious, ethical, and social issues, ART is also creating very difficult problems for some estates.
[See Estate Plans Reeling from 'Volatility Fatigue']
When a couple or surviving spouse die, their assets usually pass to their children and, later still, to their grandchildren. But what should happen when a child is conceived and born after, and in some cases many years after, their parent's death? Even if such a child, sometimes called a postmortem conception child, is anticipated in a parent's will, that does not solve the matter. Are they or are they not to be considered a grandchild and entitled to proceeds of the estates of the parents of their deceased parent?
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How to Succeed at Juggling Caregiving Burdens
Tweet Share on Facebook January 24, 2012 Comment (5)My wife and I recently opened our home for nearly three months to care for a cherished family member and her spouse. What more valuable use of our home, time, and resources could we possibly have, we thought. And we were right. But there were costs—to our family finances, our privacy, and our working lives.
In a very small way, we experienced what millions of Americans live with, many on a constant, long-term basis. More than 65 million of us spend an average of 20 hours a week as unpaid caregivers. Looking only at people being cared for who are at least 50 years old, 90 percent of them are family members.
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Senior Finances and the Great Entitlements Debate
Tweet Share on Facebook January 23, 2012 Comment (1)The Great Entitlements Debate will move into high gear this year. The need to rein in government healthcare spending on Medicare and Medicaid is undeniable. But there is no political consensus over how severe the cuts should be or how quickly they should be implemented. There is also a related debate about Social Security. Its financial impact on U.S. deficits is, depending on how you measure it, either nonexistent or modest, at least compared with healthcare.
[See Deficit Crisis Threatens Once-Untouchable Tax Breaks.]
During these discussions, the financial welfare of older Americans is likely to be a centerpiece issue. The nation's rising sensitivity to income and wealth inequalities is not limited to the 1 percent versus the 99 percent. Are older generations sucking unfair amounts of money and wealth from the government and, at least indirectly, from younger generations? Or are they struggling with meager retirements, rising healthcare costs, and dismal futures? Here are some of the central studies and viewpoints that will be rolled out again and again as weapons.
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How to Find Happiness by Spending Less
Tweet Share on Facebook January 20, 2012 CommentIncreased consumer spending has become an obsession with the economic-recovery crowd. Such spending accounts for 70 percent of the U.S. economy, as measured by the gross domestic product, or GDP. Therefore, the thinking goes, consumer spending must rise if the economy and stubbornly high unemployment rate are to recover. Some pundits even muse about consumer spending being a particularly American form of patriotism.
[See 10 Steps to Fine-Tune Your Retirement Plan.]
At the same time, personal incomes and consumer debt levels are not seen supporting any major spending surge. Even the widely welcomed boost in healthy holiday spending seems to have been fueled by a worrisome drop in consumer spending and the assumption of more debt. The personal savings rate dipped late last year to 3.5 percent, down from much higher rates earlier in the recovery.
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The Outlook for Senior Jobs in 2012
Tweet Share on Facebook January 18, 2012 Comment (11)For the seven million experienced people age 65 and older who are still in the labor force, jobless rates have consistently been lower than for all workers. As 2011 ended, the overall unemployment rate of 8.5 percent compares with a rate of 6.2 percent for people age 55 and older.
[See 10 Workplace Myths Debunked.]
That's scant comfort, of course, if you're having trouble finding a job, or finding a job that pays you what you're worth. What's become painfully clear in this slow recovery is that keeping a job is vital and job-hopping is a thing of the past for most people.
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National Alzheimer's Plan Faces Long Journey
Tweet Share on Facebook January 17, 2012 Comment (4)Alzheimer's is being called the "baby boomer's disease," as growing numbers of boomers reach the ages at which many will contract this devastating illness. Alzheimer's erodes and can eventually destroy memory. It inflicts enormous financial caregiving costs on families and society. But it reserves its biggest toll for the emotions and relationships among family and loved ones. With no cure, Alzheimer's can be a long and cruel death sentence.
[See Pat Summitt, at 59, Takes on Alzheimer's.]
Unlike most other major diseases and causes of death, the impact of Alzheimer's is getting worse, not better. In its report last week on the causes of death in 2010, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 83,308 Americans died from Alzheimer's, making it the nation's sixth leading cause of death. Heart disease killed more than seven times that number and remains the nation's leading cause of death, followed closely by cancer. But while death rates from heart disease and cancer are dropping, the death rate from Alzheimer's rose 3.3 percent in 2010.
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Great Ideas for Senior-Friendly Communities
Tweet Share on Facebook January 12, 2012 Comment (4)If necessity is the mother of invention, then the aging-in-place movement is a natural. For years, consumer surveys have reported that most people want to live right where they already are as they get older. Sure, millions may move to locales that, figuratively and literally, provide sunnier climes. But 10 times as many prefer to stay put.
[See 10 Top Cities for Senior Living.]
In recent years, they've had little choice. Home values are still some $7 trillion below their peak. As many as 20 percent of homeowners have outstanding mortgage balances that exceed the current market value of their homes. U.S. Census figures show interstate migration has just about ground to a halt.
