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Personally I don't think people my age/mates ages (late 30s to early 40s) and younger will have a traditional retirement option. With the enormous cost of the bailout of almost the entire population of the US, businesses, etc., and the U-shaped recovery of the stock market, it will be a long time before both the economic situation and personal financial health recover for most of the population. We have also learned how to work remotely 100% of the time in many businesses who were reluctant to allow this flexibility.
I foresee a future in which there is no "save up/stop work " option but rather a phased/part time/remote work until the end of life retirement style. I don't think we will all punch the 9 to 5 office clock, but instead will be flexibly employed from home into our dotage. People are living longer, accumulating less wealth and more debt, and the workplace is increasingly flexible.
For late Gen X/early millennials and beyond this model could truly disrupt investment patterns and lifestyle goals. Do you think retirement is endangered particularly for white collar jobs?
Meh. Most retirees income goes down anyway. Most are broke people pretending as if they have more than they actually do. Around here retirees are renting out portions of their primary residence while pretending like they own multiple properties. So nothing will really have changed. They will keep being broke and lying about their circumstances.
Retirement isn't happening now, what made people think it would be when I'm old enough to formally retire?
"Retirement" will happen the same way it has happened for many of the Early Boomers that I know - you will work until you are too sick or frail to continue, your employer decides you are too "old" and costly to keep doing the job you are in, or more likely the job itself goes away first (obsolete, outsource, whatever). You will be forced to either live on a smaller paycheck if you can still work at all, or default to social security before full retirement age. This will all occur at an age younger than you imagined it could, and you will spend the rest of your life with compromised health, provided you don't die sooner than later. You will probably die at a younger age than the last generation, but comparable to generations past (at least in the US).
"Retirement" will happen the same way it has happened for many of the Early Boomers that I know - you will work until you are too sick or frail to continue, your employer decides you are too "old" and costly to keep doing the job you are in, or more likely the job itself goes away first (obsolete, outsource, whatever). You will be forced to either live on a smaller paycheck if you can still work at all, or default to social security before full retirement age. This will all occur at an age younger than you imagined it could, and you will spend the rest of your life with compromised health, provided you don't die sooner than later. You will probably die at a younger age than the last generation, but comparable to generations past (at least in the US).
All the while they will be claiming, online, that they are "doing fantastic" and that "life is great." Smoke and mirrors.
The problem is that many average wage earners don't earn enough to save to the point where they can "outrun the pension benefit."
The pension is (essentially) guaranteed money in the bag. The individual doesn't need to adjust it for themselves. It is what it is. Set it and forget it.
401Ks just seem like a scam designed to prop up the stock market to me.
Personally I don't think people my age/mates ages (late 30s to early 40s) and younger will have a traditional retirement option. With the enormous cost of the bailout of almost the entire population of the US, businesses, etc., and the U-shaped recovery of the stock market, it will be a long time before both the economic situation and personal financial health recover for most of the population. We have also learned how to work remotely 100% of the time in many businesses who were reluctant to allow this flexibility.
I foresee a future in which there is no "save up/stop work " option but rather a phased/part time/remote work until the end of life retirement style. I don't think we will all punch the 9 to 5 office clock, but instead will be flexibly employed from home into our dotage. People are living longer, accumulating less wealth and more debt, and the workplace is increasingly flexible.
For late Gen X/early millennials and beyond this model could truly disrupt investment patterns and lifestyle goals. Do you think retirement is endangered particularly for white collar jobs?
I'm in my early 40s in a white-collar job and I work from home full-time (even prior to the pandemic). I don't think this affects the traditional retirement saving model at all, though. I'm still full steam ahead. I max out my (Roth) 401k contributions every year, max out ESPP contributions, max out HSA contributions, and still try to put a few tens of thousands into my personal after-tax brokerage account. My investments are down around 15% at present due to the bear market, but they'll recover in a few years and are almost certain to be much, much more valuable in 25 years when I'm ready to retire. I'm accumulating more wealth every year and already have next to no debt.
Why would there be a stoppage to people saving in an IRA, 401k, or other option? Why would people stop contributing to personal brokerages? Why would white-collar jobs in particular be damaged by the pandemic? Those are the jobs most likely to survive this unscathed.
The white collar jobs at companies who weren’t dinosaurs already allowed work from anywhere . Absolutely nothing would change from me in that regard. And honestly, one of the best parts of certain white college professions is you can scale down your work later in life. I wouldn’t mind being retired someday, living where ever I wanted, and being called as a corporate tax consultant to answer a fortune 500s questions for a few hours a week. The idea that you only work on certain hours and certain days died certainly before I even entered the workforce. The idea that you need to be sitting in a chair at 8:30 am on Monday creates absolutely zero value.
I’d also rather have my own 401k funds with my full control rather than a pension that they can do who knows what with.
You think because you work from home that you can't get laid off?
I have a friend who works from home(in the health field no less) who was just furloughed.
It will destroy or alter the dreams of those who retired last year, too, if they relied on their 401k's to get them through
It would absolutely suck to have retired right before this happened if planning on living on retirement savings, but I don't think you can support a blanket statement like this. People spend countless hours fretting over and modeling safe withdrawal rates for a reason, they want to have a portfolio that can withstand a crisis.
A recent retiree with a mix of stocks and bonds taking a reasonable safe withdrawal rate might might be able to survive a 20+% drop in the stock market right out of the gate, even if it is the worse case scenario from a portfolio survival perspective.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mkpunk
Retirement isn't happening now, what made people think it would be when I'm old enough to formally retire?
Why bother saying something when the precedent is so easily proven false? People are constantly retiring, and the average age is about 62.
You know. The ability to shelter $19k of your money from taxes until retirement and invest it in the same stock market all these wealthy 0.1%ers are using to screw over the common folk just perpetuates the scam that is screwing over the common folk.....just think about it
/s
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