NOW on PBS: Retirement at Risk

[L. Coyote]

Retirement at Risk
Streaming video of this program will be available online after broadcast
http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/509/index.html

In this struggling economy, boomers are rightfully worried about the funds they were counting on to carry them through the rest of their lives. Will they be able to afford their own retirement?

NOW turns to two experts for help and insight: Amy Domini, a pioneer in the field of socially responsible investing; and journalist Dan Gross, who covers the economy for Slate and Newsweek.

Read an excerpt from Daniel Gross' new book: "Dumb Money: How Our Greatest Financial Minds Bankrupted the Nation"

[SheilaT]

1. I am 60 years old,

and I thought I was going to be able to not work full time, if not exactly retire. But some changes happened, mainly a divorce, and my investments took a big hit, and I'm finding myself back in the job market. Personally, I've never understood people who always want to work, who never want to retire, but since I'm sort of in the position I was back when I was twenty, needing to work full time, I'm finding it's not so bad.

Probably the most important thing is that I'm extremely healthy, I have the stamina of a 40 year old, maybe even someone younger. I am never sick, I can do a reasonable amount of physical labor, just can't lift anything too heavy. So many other people my age or younger have health issues, or just don't have the energy and stamina that I've been blessed with. I have ALWAYS believed that we are here to help each other out. I can work. There are others who can't. There's no reason why people like me can't be helping out people like them.

Many of us need to make changes in the way we think. I actually get frustrated at those who say things like "I'm going to have to work until I die" because to me that sounds like a fatalism that I personally reject. It's one thing to choose to work forever. It's another to feel trapped into working. My father-in-law, a physician, worked into his 90's. He actually went to the office until two weeks before he died at age 94. Personally, I hope if I make it that far I'm spending most of my time with my embroidery and books and, if I have them, grandchildren.

[Lost in CT]

2. Christ I am on the cusp of gen X and my retirement is in the shitter...

The boomers are fucked...

Well at least they always have their real estate and defined pensions to fall back on....


:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Sorry I kill me sometimes....

[SoCalDem]

3. Many (Most?) boomers do not HAVE defined benefit pensions

we were the "test case" for the "new way"..the 401-k (now the 101-k)..


Our PARENTS were the ones who got to retire with the cushy pensions...they also mostly escaped the high cost of sending us to school because college was affordable when WE went..

WE were the ones who "got" to spend fortunes sending "your generation" to school, helping you pay your rent, letting you live with us , well into your twenties & thirties, loaning you money when you need a car, or for a myriad of emergencies

We are the ones who now are babysitting your kids, AND caring for aged parents who can't make it on their own, and we are mostly still working as much as possible and praying WE don't lose jobs...all the while trying to "save for our own retirement"

When WE entered the job force we were not offered much (because there were so damned many of us), and just as we entered the home-buying/child-rearing ages, we were socked with the first of three (at least) recessions we would live through..with double digit interest rates and inflation..combined with wage freezes..and of course there was the elimination of most deductions that we had been able to use, along with the doubling of FICA (to boost old-folks' social security and to PREPAY for our own)..

we also lived with the daily doom of never knowing which of our friends,brothers, fathers, boyfriends would be the next to have to go to Viet Nam, maybe never to return alive..

Lots of fun stuff in our past..you shoulda been there:)

but we did have free-love & lots of good music:)

[L. Coyote]

4. Not to mention, we were the generation between penicillin and HIV!

That has to count for something :rofl:

[Johnyawl]

5. hahaha you're right! or as David Crosby once said...

...the golden age of sex, the time between the arrival of birth control, and the advent of AIDS

[ThomWV]

8. That is indeed one of the things in life I have truly been thankful for - honestly!

[Lost in CT]

6. Good Lord My parents missed that day of Boomer Class....

"WE were the ones who "got" to spend fortunes sending "your generation" to school, helping you pay your rent, letting you live with us , well into your twenties & thirties, loaning you money when you need a car, or for a myriad of emergencies"

At 18 you had better had plans of some sort (College, Army,job) cause you sure as hell were not going to stay here.

I never understood parents (or their kids) that lived together after say 21 or so... It seemed like an Epic Fail on both sides.

[SoCalDem]

7. I graduated high school in '67, and moved out on my own on Labor Day of 1967

never lived at "home" again..
We were lucky..all ours were "out" by age 20, but some of my friends' kids have a revolving door..and many of them come back over and over..with THEIR kids.. it's depressing..

[Lost in CT]

11. Honestly thats the parents bad... I had a five day rule at Christmas.

I could visit my parents for five days before it became uncomfortable for all.


Now my dad has dementia and I took some time off work to come home and get him set up.

Lucky for him he raised his kids to be independent so they would be in a position to help him when he needed it.

[Dem2theMax]

12. Then again, there is another side to the coin.

My folks are 89 and 90. Lucky for them, and for me, I was able to move back in with them and take care of them.

Depressing? At times, yes, for all of us. But most of all, it is a HUGE blessing for all three of us.

Your friends with the kids who come home again and again? Chances are, they will be the kids who come home to take care of Mom and Dad if and when they need it.

[Mike 03]

9. It is a devastating situation. Every day I see or hear about someone who has worked his/her

entire life whose life savings has been destroyed by fifty, sixty or more percent, or eliminated entirely as a result of some scheme by a fraudulent investor.

It's egregious, and it's spreading quickly to all neighborhoods, all states and, eventually, all nations.

[onethatcares]

10. I moved out one drunken morning in 1969

at 16 and never moved back in. I was wanting to kinda retire when I hit 65 or 68, but thought working part time would be ok to supplement whatever I have in investments and Social Security. I guess those dreams are over. Jeez, it's nutz to work forever, there are too many things going on in the world as far as volunteering, socializing and all that other stuff we're supposed to do, but end up working and being too tired to do while we're younger.

[MadHound]

13. Not just boomers

Hell, I'm an end boomer/early X'er and I'm worried about my retirement. It took the stock market twenty some-odd years to reach it's pre-Depression numbers. At least I've got fifteen, twenty years of work life left if I stretch and work till I'm seventy. I'm more worried about my Mom's retirement that anything else.