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So many "frequent travelers" never take the time to actually visit anything in the area.
I'm a road warrior a lot of years. Exactly when am I supposed to find all this spare time to visit attractions? Between the travel, working all day, catching up on my "real" work off hours in the hotel room, and required business dinners, I don't have a heck of a lot of spare hours in my day. With that much travel, when I'm done doing business, I fly home and sleep in my own bed. There's not much difference in hotels, rental cars, airports, and office buildings anywhere in the world I've been and that's the business travel experience.
This is playing games with the word "average". The median household income for retirees is $36,895. The bottom half isn't exactly stylin'. The numbers are getting worse, not better. Far more current retirees have defined benefit pensions now than will be the case when late-boomers and GenX-ers retire. The top-20% and those fortunate few with defined benefit pensions will do fine. Most of the rest are F'ed. The 70th percentile for household wealth for 65+ is about $330K. The income data looks great now when there are a large number of retires with defined benefit pensions. It will look far less rosy when most retirees are surviving on a Social Security check and drawing 5% from their $200K to $300K IRA/401(k) portfolio. Go try to buy an annuity at age 65 that pays 92% of your income. It ain't $200K.
Agreed - even today, there are still quite a few Silents out there hanging on who often managed to squirrel away quite a bit and had a pension. Those retirement incomes are often deceptively high compared to what younger boomers and younger generations would have with the same money invested, much less adjusting for the older folks income net of inflation (probably less than many late Boomers, etc.)
I was surprised to see Ramesh Ponnuru write this cr*p because he is a usually sensible guy. My job is researching retirement and other investment-related issues for a think tank - and he and I both know that when you look at data you have to look at the whole distribution, not just the mean or median.
The average American retiree is in pretty good shape. But that consists of a top 15-20% (not 1%) that has done exceedingly well, a large middle group, and a group that has nothing but Social Security and a a few thousand dollars in savings.
You can guess who is going to be asking whom to give them money over the next few decades. This is a crisis because people vote, and they'll vote high taxes on anyone who has been prudent enough to save enough for retirement. A lot of people, me included, have saved just enough and can't afford to pay for all the people who haven't.
By the way, people with large retirement balances, and by that I mean over $1 million or so, aren't "the rich." They are middle to upper middle class people who lived below their means, saved and invested, or were participants in well-run pension plans. $1 million gets you $40,000 in income. Add that to Social Security and you can survive, but you won't be buying that McMansion on the golf course in Scottsdale that you've always wanted. The rich are, well, rich, with tens of millions or more - more than they will ever need; that's what being rich is.
This is playing games with the word "average". The median household income for retirees is $36,895. The bottom half isn't exactly stylin'...It will look far less rosy when most retirees are surviving on a Social Security check and drawing 5% from their $200K to $300K IRA/401(k) portfolio. Go try to buy an annuity at age 65 that pays 92% of your income. It ain't $200K.
Excellent post.
To be exact, $1 million will get you an annual income of $67,009 with no inflation adjustments if you are a 65 year old American male.
Agreed - even today, there are still quite a few Silents out there hanging on who often managed to squirrel away quite a bit and had a pension. Those retirement incomes are often deceptively high compared to what younger boomers and younger generations would have with the same money invested, much less adjusting for the older folks income net of inflation (probably less than many late Boomers, etc.)
Very true, you and Larry make good points. It isn't pension or investments it is often both and that can cloud the data. As can regional data cloud national data. Pensions are greater in some areas as are SS benefits tied to income. Many pensioners have done the 401/403 investments in amounts greater than the norm with impact on aggregate data. I wonder what the response would be if folks were required to answer if they had pension and SS family income in excess of 90k or higher and investments in excess of 300k, 590k 750k etc
The average Social Security benefit is $1328 per month.
Joe six pack won't get too far on that alone.
while yes that is the average check , for retirees it is higher . the average numbers take in to consideration all those who collect pre 62 like children . it looks like most folks file early when you look at the raw numbers of those collecting at 62 .
but once you dissect the numbers you find retirees are actually taking it later then 62 as a group . the problem is there is no differentiation made .
Of course! If you're otherwise scrimping NOW for retirement and then you find out you'll have more money then it is human nature to not deprive yourself NOW for no reason. You've decided that you'll be satisfied with that amount..why WOULD you keep depriving yourself?
Some folks in our society are so Calvinistic that all they can do is work and sacrifice their entire lives - they can't stop even in retirement. You have to decide what you need, save that amount and then enjoy the remainder before retirement.
Exactly this. Check out the Frugal Living forum for more examples. It's not a crime to enjoy life now.
However, when I was 30, I mapped out a plan for retirement, which was based on working for county government. I traded making the Big Bucks of private industry for a career of modest wages working for the public good in exchange for a secure, lifetime pension. Having retired 3 weeks ago it seems my plan has worked out just fine. Planning comes in different forms
Exactly this. You forego 20-25-30 years of higher wages to get that secured pension. Teachers, career military, law enforcement, game wardens, etc all do this starting in their 20s when they first sign up -- and they stick with it.
When I entered public service I was a single woman in my thirties in a new career. I stuck with it just for the pension because I could have easily made twice my salary in the private sector after a couple of years of experience. The attrition among young IT professionals (20 somethings) in public service before they vest in their pension systems has always been very high. Do those younger people squirrel away enough from their increased wages to replace the pension monies they walked away from? My guess is some do and some don't.
You can guess who is going to be asking whom to give them money over the next few decades. This is a crisis because people vote, and they'll vote high taxes on anyone who has been prudent enough to save enough for retirement. A lot of people, me included, have saved just enough and can't afford to pay for all the people who haven't.
I'm still trying to figure out what "just enough" might be. I'm not going to get anything close to replacement income when I retire. I did the math at age 50 and did something about it. It's still going to take staying on plan until age 65 1/2 and deferring collecting Social Security until age 70 to get to what I think is probably "just enough" and that's about 40% of replacement income. I still have 8 years to go. A break in employment trashes my numbers.
while yes that is the average check , for retirees it is higher . the average numbers take in to consideration all those who collect pre 62 like children . it looks like most folks file early when you look at the raw numbers of those collecting at 62 .
but once you dissect the numbers you find retirees are actually taking it later then 62 as a group . the problem is there is no differentiation made .
Nor are they splitting off those who are in their 80's and collecting. Most average joes of that age had a much lower income in their work history and even retired and collected right at 62 due to health reasons.
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