Almost 750,000 California seniors still working after age 65 (pension, federal, state)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
44,553 posts, read 81,067,970 times
Reputation: 57722
Quote:
Originally Posted by StealthRabbit
Age 65 retirement is certainly not for everyone. I would be very suprised if even 30% take retirement at first available chance. The vast majority of my friends and aquaintances work well beyond age 65. I have about 5% of my friends in Federal, State, or school employment. Vast majority are farmers and self employed, they just keep working till they die. No crime in that lifestyle. Many have never taken a traditional vacation. I'm sure they would be quite disappointed in wasting so much time on themselves.
There is another reason. I am 64, and with a defined benefit pension, SS, 401K and other investments I could retire now, but expect to stay until 68 or even 70. I enjoy my work, the people I work with and the work setting. I also am making more than even before in my life, and with 7 weeks paid vacation/year now I can afford to take nice vacation trips. What's the rush? We have had a recent flurry of retirements here where I work, and while most were in their late 60s, one was 71, another 72.
For one thing, the COL in urban California is high.
For another factor, many people starting on pension are unsure if they can maintain their standard-of-living on that level of income. We see a lot of threads asking such questions. So they go on pension, while continuing to work, to satisfy themselves first-hand if they can 'do it'.
My Dw convinced me that we could afford to live on my pension as soon as I got it. BUT, among the community of military retirees, we are very rare. Very few military retirees think they can do it on their pension, so 99 out of 100 seek a second career with another pension.
So you have these two factors influencing retirees. Some live in extremely high COL regions, so maybe they honestly can not live on their pension. While they lack confidence that they can do it.
I am from California. My siblings live in California. Nearly all of my former highschool classmates stayed within a 40-mile radius of our highschool. It would never occur to any of them to seek a lower COL place to live.
My career took me far afield so I was exposed to other cultures. I experienced other places and learned for myself that there are other places to live.
"Retirement" is a term that was conceived during those years when pension plans were being sold as good investment for corporations, building wealth they could draw from while providing a huge benefit for the employees. Today, well, I think we've come full circle back to the days before pensions when people worked until they dropped. We will see more of the working class laboring into their late sixties or even early seventies, not because work holds their attention to that extent, but moreover, because their financial anxiety is driving them to work.
Arizona and the eastern California area will probably suffer in the coming years without a new generation of pension toting seniors to back-fill the economic void left by the dying boomers. Retirement is really a fairly new component to our base economics, and it's loss will certainly be something that should warrant our rethinking of the benefits of our race to the bottom. The thought that the future may be completely devoid of that semi luxury class of pensioned boomer retirees should be a real concern for the states, not to mention the the merchant class that surrounds the Del Webb communities across the SW United States.
This isn't a California and Arizona issue. It's a nationwide issue. If you're a late-Boomer or a Gen Xer, you don't have a pension unless you're part of the 10% working in the public sector or a rare union job. People will start collecting a Social Security check when they have to in order to make ends meet even if they continue working part-time at a lower wage job.
The whole country is going to be facing a tidal wave of elderly with zero wealth and no income but a poverty level Social Security check topped up a bit with SSI. A large slice of those will have no children to pick up the slack either because they didn't reproduce or because their children weren't economically successful. The demographics looking out 20 years when the last of the Boomers and the first of the Gen Xers hit retirement age are pretty bleak.
"More than 740,000 California residents between ages 65 and 74 are employed or looking for work, roughly double the number from 15 years ago, according to a Sacramento Bee review of the latest census data."
Including those looking for work puts a whole different spin on it.
The title of this thread throws it off too!
The raw number is meaningless to compare. Normalize the data such as using percentages. There are a lot more people in that group today vs. 15 years ago.
They never say if they work because they want to or have to. All speculation, albeit you can assume anxiety about the economy is a factor.
Of course we have all the people who spent all their "fake equity" in the housing bubble and set themselves back a decade with foreclosures etc and even taking out their 401K with penalties. Some people even bundled their unsecured debts in their mortgage! So they lost their cars. IF they're trying to get back after a bankruptcy, you see it takes about this long - 7 to 10 years so they can get another mortgage.
BUT, you also have alot of immigrants in CA. It's arguable they came here older and want to build up their earnings. Perhaps were even sending their earnings home or not even legal at first. Or at all.
Then, OK, you may have some people who had a company pension but left that company so it didn't continue to grow as much, if their next job didn't offer same.
Also people are living longer now. People start businesses and second careers in their 60's, when decades ago, they retired young and died shortly after.
US life expectancy was 70 in 1960 and now is 79.
Japan went from 69 to 83 though!
Of course you also have those who thought they'd "retire" at 55 and then lost everything with poor money management and had to go "back to work". It's a fact that MANY MANY people who take a lump sum pension burn through it quickly instead of financial planning. Very common at the phone company which offers buyouts all the time.
Speaking of phone companies, most people I know stay until FRA or longer because the benefits are great ie 7 weeks paid vacation etc. Their seniority gives them the selection of the best jobs, best work rules etc so they may stay until 70 now!
Look at the ages of our Presidential candidates LOL. Or even my last lawyer NEVER retired and died at around 85.
I have a 72 year old client with a $1M condo, PLENTY Of savings for life, full insurance etc and STILL takes a banking job once a year or so to do an audit or whatever because he loves working and counting his money. He earns about $10-$20 thousand for that contractor job and goes on vacation with it.
Although I'll admit he may not check off a box that asks "are you looking for work". it's an example of someone who LIKES working.
Seniors working into their 70's is a good thing.....Gov. Moonbeam needs their tax payments to buy more votes from the non working parasites sucking off all those wonderful State benefits...
This isn't a California and Arizona issue. It's a nationwide issue. If you're a late-Boomer or a Gen Xer, you don't have a pension unless you're part of the 10% working in the public sector or a rare union job. People will start collecting a Social Security check when they have to in order to make ends meet even if they continue working part-time at a lower wage job.
The whole country is going to be facing a tidal wave of elderly with zero wealth and no income but a poverty level Social Security check topped up a bit with SSI. A large slice of those will have no children to pick up the slack either because they didn't reproduce or because their children weren't economically successful. The demographics looking out 20 years when the last of the Boomers and the first of the Gen Xers hit retirement age are pretty bleak.
I was referring to the fact of a huge class of pensioned people in the SW that have definitely dominated the economic demographic ever since the advent of the defined pension plan, but yes, it is certainly a national concern as well. I spent some time In AZ during the winter months and met a ton of people who convinced me that their situation with regard to their snowbirding was attributable to their great pensions, coupled with SS and 401K"s. Lacking those plans, the future looks to be particularly bleak for the American SW economy, and the rest of America in general.
I'll be seventy one in August and I was one of the younger guys in most of the places we went in Arizona. A huge concentration of the well off elderly really brings home the fact of a very large chasm of wealth in America, with seniors filling the coffers of the majority of businesses throughout the SW. The younger folks in Sahuarita were scrambling to fill the needs of all those $eniors, but the future doesn't hold much in the way of long term employment for them, pensions were, and still are the backbone of most senior's disposable income.
Heck the baby boomers have it good. What until Gen X'ers get there. We will have very little if any retirement. After Gen X, I suspect people will work to the grave. It is what it is. Enjoy the beautiful day!
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.