Sources of individual income for people 65+

[eridani]

The lowest 25% have <$10,722 a year.
The next 25% have $10,722> and <$17,160 a year.
The next 25% have $17,160> and <$32,160 a year.
The top 25% have >$32,160 a year.

Lowest 25%. 2nd quartile 3rd Quartile Top Quartile
Social Sccurity------------85%---------80%------------55%----------20%
Earnings-------------------2%-----------4%------------10%--------- 35%
Pensions-------------------3%---------- 6%------------25%----------20%
Asset income---------------3%-----------10%-----------10%----------25%
Public assistance-----------7%

The elite top 25% of seniors are mostly in that category not because they are coupon clippers but because they are still working! The lowest two quartile get over 80% of all their income from Social Security.

I'm one of the elitists (slightly more than $32,000) with 3% from assets, 7% from earnings, and 45% each from a pension and Social Security. My husband is in the bottom quartile at 100% Social Security. Any cuts in Social Security would mean moving from modest comfort to poverty. Now multiply that by millions.

[Warren Stupidity]

It is your fault for living too long and not being rich.

If the 65+ set would just die earlier we could continue to not have to pay back the boomer ss surplus and fund our bloated military without increasing taxes on billionaires.

The cat food commission is looking into 'early exit options' for seniors.

[leftofcool]

2. I got an idea

Just supply all of us about to hit 65 with a generous amount of pot on a monthly basis and we will smoke ourselves to death. Think the cat food crowd will go for it?

[Blue Meany]

21. DEATH PANELS - The catfood commission wants death panels

to decide who gets to live after 65. They haven't denied it, so it must be true. Spread the word.

[lostnfound]

5. Just think how useful that will be politically, too.

Get one stooge to make mention of the idea and the RW megaphone will chant 'why do the Democrats want to kill social security AND kill off seniors too..?'

[NickB79]

7. The true "death panels", brought to you by the GOP. nt

[Warren Stupidity]

1. dupe

[Crazy Dave]

3. We had to let my mom move in with us

Not in the same house, just built a small house next to mine. Where else could she live and eat on only $900 a month?

[northernlights]

6. Cuenco, Ecuador

seriously. One of the top places to retire comfortably on social security alone. You can even have your social security check direct deposited into your local bank account. Fresh food year round, moderate climate, low-cost health insurance even for seniors, decent care...the budget even allows entertainment. There are places all over the world where you can still do that, but obviously not everybody wants to, nor should they have to.

I don't have children and won't have any family to take me in or help me out or leave me wanting to stay in the US. Luckily I'm good with languages, am used to flying solo after all these years and have something of an adventurous spirit. Otherwise, I'd be even more depressed than usual...

[Crazy Dave]

15. Good luck!

I think, a 90% chance, that the wife and I will dump the US too in our later years. I'm fairly good at several languages myself and currently looking at how expats in the Ukraine and Argentina are doing right now but who knows what we will decide 20 years from now.

[northernlights]

16. thanks! I'm still 5-10 years away myself...

I had a nice nest egg, but that's been lost to fraud and unemployment. Now all that's left is the house, plus student loans to pay off. Hopefully the re-education will enable me to build something of a nest egg and they'll be enough of a recovery for me to sell my home.

So I'm keeping an eye open. Cuenco is just one place in S. America that's reasonably safe, very affordable with moderate climate and expat communities. Montevideo in Uruguay is another on my list. Time will tell...

[FBaggins]

4. Likely doesn't mean what you imply.

This confuses income and assets. It's quite possible that many of the real "elite" don't even fall
into that top-25% bracket.

[eridani]

8. Of course, the real elite would be a tiny fraction of the top 25%

Still the fact that the top income quartile STARTS at $32,000 says something. Actual assets aren't counted--just income form assets. That, for most of the 25% makes less contribution to their income than continuing to work.

[FBaggins]

9. My point is that they're talking about income... not standard of living.

Quite a few retirees (hopefully including yours truly some day) have saved up their own money for retirement. It may not pay much "income" (in fact many have likely lost money lately), but it supports a well-above-$32k lifestyle without having >$32k in income. THeir greatest source of spending money would be "withdrawal from savings" which doesn't even show up.

The other error is lumping the entire over-65 demographic into one pot. Lots of people work past 65 in the normal course of things, It doesn't mean that a bad economy is forcing retirees back to work at some lesser-paying job (though it certainly is). The 80+ demographic, OTOH, is far more likely to be truly "retired"

[jtuck004]

10. As of today,about a third of retirees will be living ONLY on social security

Which, for many of them, means less than $10,000 a year for tens of millions of Americans.

Given that there are 20 million unemployed or underemployed, and with unemployment likely to increase over the next year, and the odds that we will not be below 8% unemployment by 2020, (And that's if we get job growth better than that of the Clinton Administration, which had the best job growth of ALL modern presidencies) - which means

Millions of American have worked the last job they will ever have. Whether they are 55, or 60, or 65.

Just sayin...

[Crazy Dave]

20. Many economists are saying what you state

That millions of Americans who are now unemployed or underemployed will remain that way for the rest of their lives.

What's bad is with myself and others I know who are currently employed, we're now getting different job offers all of the time when there is so many people out of work. Why try to steal somebody from another company when you can have 40+ applicants a day in my town for a CAD tech? When I was out of work in late '08 it took three months to land a job after applying for at least sixty.

[dixiegrrrrl]

12. I agree, standard of living is key in this scenario.

We live well here on 1/3 of the income that we previously needed in a much more expensive area of the country.

Expenses should figure into the scenario too.
Are we talking about someone who owns their own home, is debt free, perhaps has a shared living arrangement, etc?

[eridani]

14. It's true that income is not the entire story

But it certainly is one of the most basic elements. I'm in the elite category with slightly over $32000 income, which includes spending principal from my savings. This amounts to modest comfort with a paid off house--without that, we would be above the poverty level, but not by a lot.

[FBaggins]

17. If spending principal from your savings is what puts you over the line...

...then you aren't over the line.

That isn't "income" - it was income ten/twenty/thirty years ago when you saved it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

19. I actually meant to say that "cost of living"

instead of standard of living, although of course they are both inter-twined.

[eridani]

13. I'm assuming that the assets category includes--

---both those who have enough to live off interest only and tha majority who are most likely spending down principal from their savings. The income derived from assets is INCLUDED in the yearly income.

And then again, the mean overestimates the amount of asset income used in a year compared to median or modal measures.

[FBaggins]

18. Close

The income derived from the assets IS the yearly income in that category.

They don't count reduction of principal.

So if, for instance, you see that in the 30k-40k group, 2/3 had income-producing assets and the average of that income was about $3,768 - Then you can assume that they have somewhere in the ballpark of $200,000 in savings that they can draw down over their expected lifetime. Also keep in mind that only interest and dividends show up as "income" if your other assets are stocks that you haven't sold yet.

And then again, the mean overestimates the amount of asset income used in a year compared to median or modal measures.

I don't know about "overestimates"... it's just a different way of looking at the same data... but it supports what I was saying earlier. In the $10,000 to $19,000 income category, the median income from assets is more than five times the median. Which means that there are some pretty comfortable people in that $10k-$20k bracket. Nowhere near a majority of course, but a bunch of people who look impoverished by income measures... but have plenty of money saved up to support their retirement.

It's a goal that we should all have. Company pensions are dying away and Social Security almost certainly won't be as attractive 15-20 years down the road. We have to plan ahead.

[pscot]

11. Being able to keep working

seems to be a big factor for the top two quarters.