Boomers in "Retirement"

Hi readers, Do you know that the baby boomer birth cohort is the largest in U.S. history? This "baby tsunami" is comprised of people born from 1946-1964 after WWII ended and soldiers came home to start their families. The oldest in that cohort turned age 65 on January 1, 2011.

At 78m strong, it represents the most powerful "group" of voters, spenders, buyers, and retirees. Except that the overwhelming majority express NO desire to retire any time soon. This is a good thing! The initial projections, aka the "Chicken Little" predictions, indicated that retiring boomers would bankrupt Social Security upon retirement. But those "sky is falling" estimations were flawed, based on the assumption that ALL would retire at the age of sixty-five.

According to researcher Kathy Krepico of Rutgers University (2007), that many retirees would reduce the labor force, as there are not enough younger people to fill their jobs, particularly in the areas of energy, aerospace, education, and healthcare. Krepico also indicated that boomers today are 40% of the total U.S. workforce and they have no intention of retiring.

Why aren't they retiring? For a number of reasons including good health, abolishment of mandatory retirement by the Social Security Administration, lack of savings, lack or loss of pension benefits, step-down retirement, not feeling "old," too much debt, high unemployment, rising healthcare costs, lower investment returns, and the economic downturn (Krepico, 2007; EBRI.org, 2011).

The Retirement Confidence Survey [RCS] conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI, 2011) found that approximately 33% of workers and retirees had to use some of their savings to pay for basic living expenses last year. Their 2011 retirement survey revealed that the number one reason why workers have postponed retirement is the poor economy. They also found that in 1991, 50% of workers planned to retire at age 65 but in 2011 only 23% (EBRI, 2011).

In 2011, the RCS survey was their 21st annual survey and was conducted by Mathew Greenwald and Associates, Inc. and published in March 2011 as EBRI Isue Brief, available at www.ebri.org. They also have fact sheets available at www.ebri.org/surveys/rcs/2011/ Check it out!! AgeDoc

Employee Benefit Research Institute, (2011). 2011 retirement confidence survey: Workers' pessimism about retirement deepens, reflecting "the new normal." Retrieved from www.ebri.org/surveys/rcs/2011/

Krepico, K. (2007). Baby boomers in retirement: Implications for the workforce. Journal of Jewish Communal Services, 82(3). 155-158.