CNBC - Nearly half of middle-class Americans face a slide into poverty as they enter their retirement, a recent study by the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at the New School has concluded.
That risk has been driven by depressed earnings, depressed asset values and increased health-care costs — causing 74 percent of Americans planning to work past traditional retirement age. Additionally, both private and public pension plans have been allowed to become seriously underfunded. So what can be done?
Fundamental changes in the structure of the U.S. economy, combined with increased health-care costs and lack of saving, have created a financial trap for millions of American workers heading into retirement.
Roughly 40 percent of Americans who are considered middle class (based on their income levels) will fall into poverty or near poverty by the time they reach age 65, according to the study.
1 comment:
Yep, and I'm one of them. I made the mistake of investing in the casino...er, stock market, and lost a lot. Then they started getting rid of people over 40, and at 62 I couldn't find anything else, so had to take a reduction in social security.
I've practiced in 4 fields requiring a university degree, my work won competitive awards in 2 of the fields, and I'm fluent in 2 other human languages besides English, plus a dozen or so computer languages. But I was Too Old, Entirely Too Old to be employed.
It's a pump. Upstroke or down, the wealth goes from our pockets to theirs relentlessly.
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