As if Americans don’t have enough to worry about, U.S. News offers up this story about how they are woefully unprepared for their golden years. To make matters worse, the survey results likely understate the problem across the U.S. population as a whole because, as I read the report(.pdf), respondents were limited to larger companies with retirement plans and excluded the many small businesses where individuals are on their own.
Workers Fear Savings Won’t Last in Retirement
Most workers are worried that their retirement savings won’t last the rest of their life. Only 40 percent of current workers say they will have enough money to finance a 25-year of retirement, according to a new Towers Watson survey of 3,099 full time employees in the private sector. Just 62 percent of the survey respondents think their retirement savings will last even 15 years.
“Despite some signs of an economic recovery, many employees remain apprehensive about the future of their retirement,” says Kevin Wagner, a senior retirement consultant at Towers Watson. “The financial crisis hit employees hard and eroded both their savings and confidence in being able to retire comfortably.”
Employees with a traditional pension are considerably more likely to feel satisfied with their financial situation than those with only a 401(k) plan. Over half (52 percent) of workers with a traditional pension are confident that they will have enough resources for a comfortable 25-year retirement, compared to a third (34 percent) of employees with a 401(k) or similar type of retirement account.
Understandably, there is growing fear that traditional pension plans will not be able to deliver on their promises and, at some point, the same will be true for government workers.
Also, see 5 Ways to Calm Your Retirement Fears and pay particular attention to items 2 and 3 that, in my view, are key - Increase your financial planning knowledge and Start changing your lifestyle now. More emphasis on understanding spending – not just retirement income – would have been nice, but this is a good start for most people.
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I wonder what assumptions they used about return on investment? At 3% return on “safe” investments, you’d need about $1.3 million to have a median income. I wonder how many of those 40% would have been “satisifed” if they had been asked if they thought they’d have over a million dollars saved up by retirement time!
Are they really “satisifed” or just “deluded?”
Of course, that assumes that social security will be dead and buried by then.
They needn’t worry too much. When mass numbers of baby boomers reach 70 or more and can’t really work much anymore, lacking sufficient savings, they will simply vote themselves some sort of levy on the retirement funds of those who did save instead of spend all those years. They’ll call it some sort of “save social security” movement, or will confiscate your 401k in return for a “guaranteed return” from the govn’t that you will receive in devalued inflated dollars sometime in the future. If you have over XXX dollars saved, it will be deemed “excess” and a healthy portion of it taxed.
Gold coins, bought for cash, in small amounts, over time, seem to be a good choice.
Gold Confiscation: Could it Happen Again? watch this http://www.youtube.com/edjuh10