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Retirement Crisis: Only 10% ‘Financially Stable,’ 50% Have No Fund
With the onus for retirement saving moved from pensions to 401(k)s, millions of older Americans can’t afford to stop working, USA Today reports. Coupled with rising housing costs and medical expenses, retirement today is becoming a luxury.
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Social Security benefits pay less than half the average wage earned and, to boot, may be cut. Furthermore, only half of Americans have a retirement account, according to the federal Survey of Consumer Finances.
Even if a worker is saving for retirement, they have woefully little put away. The average 401(k) account balance was $125,900 in the fourth quarter of 2023, according to Fidelity Investments.
Only 10% of Americans between the ages of 62 and 70 who are retired are financially stable, says Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist and professor at The New School for Social Research.
“One in 2 people reaching retirement won’t have enough, and 1 in 4 seniors are in poverty measured by international standards,” Ghilarducci says.
Ghilarducci blames the retirement savings crisis on the switch from pensions to “do-it-yourself” 401(k)s.
The majority of older Americans are either retired and living below the standard of living they enjoyed while they were in the workforce — or can’t afford to stop working, according to data Ghilarducci analyzed from the University of Michigan’s Health and Retirement Survey.
“The retirement savings crisis in the United States is no longer looming: it is here now,” according to a report from the National Institute on Retirement Security.
“We’re far from where we need to be,” notes Dan Doonan, executive director of the nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., and one of the report’s authors.
Seniors are now facing a frightening, unthinkable prospect: poverty in old age.
Theresa Edwards, 74, of Los Angeles works as a caregiver during the day, and looks after her husband of 55 years as he recovers from a serious car accident.
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Every dollar counts, says Edwards, who has no credit cards after having maxed them out.
“I bless Jesus and God for me to be as strong as I am at this stage,” Edwards says. “Sometimes I wish I could stop working. But the way life is going, I’m not sure I can.”
Robin Delucia of Sarasota, Florida, retired for all of two months at 70, is back working at gigs as often as she can, given the fact that 15 surgeries in the past 20 years have taken a toll on her health.
“It’s the only way I can afford to keep living,” Delucia says. “To live on Social Security alone nowadays is an absolute joke, especially in Florida.”
Delucia, who lives in a “she shed” behind her daughter’s home, is, nevertheless, optimistic. She plans to start a Facebook page for people 62 and older, as well as a nonprofit that will serve as a housing network for older Americans.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink agrees with Ghilarducci that the 401(k) “you’re on your own” system has moved older Americans from “financial certainly to financial uncertainty.”
Fink thinks the time has come for political leaders and the retirement savings industry to work together to fix the crisis.
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“Maybe once a decade, the U.S. faces a problem so big and urgent that government and corporate leaders stop business as usual,” says Fink, head of one of the world’s biggest asset management firms. “America needs an organized, high-level effort to ensure that future generations can live out their final years with dignity.”
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