Posts

The Average American Worker Has Just $955 in Retirement Savings, New Study Finds

/0 Comments/in , /by

A new study finds that the median American worker has just $955 saved for retirement through a defined contribution plan like a 401(k) account, with most falling well short of recommended retirement savings targets for their ages.

The study by the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS) found that among all workers between the ages of 21 and 64, including those who haven’t saved anything for retirement, the median amount saved in a defined contribution plan was just $955 as of 2023.

By contrast, among those who have positive retirement plan wealth — or at least $1 saved in a defined contribution (DC) plan — the median savings were much higher at $40,000.

The report found that the average account balance among workers aged 21 to 64, including those with no savings, was $93,229. However, among those who have saved at least $1 in a DC plan, the average savings was $179,082.

NIRS’ study also compared Americans’ retirement savings balances against the targets used by Fidelity, which developed guidelines based on age and income levels. (Read more from “The Average American Worker Has Just $955 in Retirement Savings, New Study Finds” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

The World Braces for Retirement Crisis

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP/Eugene Hoshiko

Photo Credit: AP/Eugene Hoshiko

A global retirement crisis is bearing down on workers of all ages.

Spawned years before the Great Recession and the financial meltdown in 2008, the crisis was significantly worsened by those twin traumas. It will play out for decades, and its consequences will be far-reaching.

Many people will be forced to work well past the traditional retirement age of 65 — to 70 or even longer. Living standards will fall, and poverty rates will rise for the elderly in wealthy countries that built safety nets for seniors after World War II. In developing countries, people’s rising expectations will be frustrated if governments can’t afford retirement systems to replace the tradition of children caring for aging parents.

The problems are emerging as the generation born after World War II moves into retirement.

“The first wave of under-prepared workers is going to try to go into retirement and will find they can’t afford to do so,” says Norman Dreger, a retirement specialist in Frankfurt, Germany, who works for Mercer, a global consulting firm.

Read more from this story HERE.

U.S. Middle Class Implosion: 37% Say They’ll Never Retire, Over 40% Can Barely Pay Bills

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: CNBCYou’ve heard the story about America’s retirement crisis.

Young people don’t save enough. Older people have to work longer. Public pension benefits are always on the verge of being slashed, and Social Security’s future is anyone’s guess. No one trusts the stock market, but keeping assets in a savings account generates the same return as keeping them under a mattress.

The retirement picture is alarming at best. And now it has come to this: In its annual retirement study of middle-income Americans (income of $25,000 to $100,000), Wells Fargo asked participants if they expect to work until they die.

“This is the first time we asked if people thought they would work until they die or become too sick,” said Laurie Nordquist, head of Wells Fargo Institutional Retirement and Trust. Thirty-seven percent of middle-income Americans surveyed by Wells Fargo said they have that expectation. The finding translates to just under two in five Americans who believe they will never be able to retire.

Wells included the question based on a larger trend exposed when participants have been asked how many expect to work until they are at least 80. That number was at 34 percent in this year’s survey, a significant rise from 25 percent two years ago. It’s been on a steady rise, too, up from 30 percent in 2012.

Read more from this story HERE.

Disaster for Patient Care Looming: 60% of Doctors Say Providers will Retire Earlier Due to Obamacare

/4 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: WNDIn a survey by a top research firm, six in 10 physicians said it is likely many doctors will retire earlier than planned in the next one to three years.

The same percentage say the practice of medicine is in jeopardy as medical experts lose control of their clinics and compensation with the implementation of the Affordable Health Care for America Act, or Obamacare.

A spokeswoman for the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, Dr. Jane Orient, was not surprised.

She told WND that doctors already have started leaving the profession through early retirement. Among those who remain, some will seek alternatives to what they see coming in the federal government’s takeover of health care.

“I think it’s a disaster for patients,” she said. “They may lose the doctor they relied on all their lives.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Who Needs Term Limits? Obamacare Driving Congressmen into Retirement

/10 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Dozens of lawmakers and aides are so afraid that their health insurance premiums will skyrocket next year thanks to Obamacare that they are thinking about retiring early or just quitting.

The fear: Government-subsidized premiums will disappear at the end of the year under a provision in the health care law that nudges aides and lawmakers onto the government health care exchanges, which could make their benefits exorbitantly expensive.

Democratic and Republican leaders are taking the issue seriously, but first they need more specifics from the Office of Personnel Management on how the new rule should take effect — a decision that Capitol Hill sources expect by fall, at the latest. The administration has clammed up in advance of a ruling, sources on both sides of the aisle said.

If the issue isn’t resolved, and massive numbers of lawmakers and aides bolt, many on Capitol Hill fear it could lead to a brain drain just as Congress tackles a slew of weighty issues — like fights over the Tax Code and immigration reform.

The problem is far more acute in the House, where lawmakers and aides are generally younger and less wealthy. Sources said several aides have already given lawmakers notice that they’ll be leaving over concerns about Obamacare. Republican and Democratic lawmakers said the chatter about retiring now, to remain on the current health care plan, is constant.

Read more from this story HERE.

Another Obamacare Casualty: More Docs Plan To Retire Early (+video)

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Photo Credit: Every Day Health

Most physicians have a pessimistic outlook on the future of medicine, citing eroding autonomy and falling income, a survey of more than 600 doctors found.

Six in 10 physicians (62 percent) said it is likely many of their colleagues will retire earlier than planned in the next 1 to 3 years, a survey from Deloitte Center for Health Solutions found. That perception is uniform across age, gender, and specialty, it said.

Another 55 percent of surveyed doctors believe others will scale back hours because of the way medicine is changing, but the survey didn’t elaborate greatly on how it was changing. Three-quarters think the best and brightest may not consider a career in medicine, although that is an increase from the 2011 survey result of 69 percent.

“Physicians recognize ‘the new normal’ will necessitate major changes in the profession that require them to practice in different settings as part of a larger organization that uses technologies and team-based models for consumer (patient) care,” the survey’s findings stated.

About two-thirds of the survey responders said they believe physicians and hospitals will become more integrated in coming years. In the last 2 years, 31 percent moved into a larger practice, results found. Nearly eight in 10 believe midlevel providers will play a larger role in directing primary care.

Watch video here:


Read more from this story HERE.

The Feds Want Your Retirement Accounts

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: American ThinkerQuietly, behind the scenes, the groundwork is being laid for federal government confiscation of tax-deferred retirement accounts such as IRAs. Slowly, the cat is being let out of the bag.

Last January 18th, in a little noticed interview of Richard Cordray, acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Bloomberg reported “[t]he U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [CFPB] is weighing whether it should take on a role in helping Americans manage the $19.4 trillion they have put into retirement savings, a move that would be the agency’s first foray into consumer investments.” That thought generates some skepticism, as aptly expressed by the Richard Terrell cartoon published by American Thinker.

Days later On January 24th President Obama renominated Cordray as CFPB director even though his recess appointment was not due to expire until the end of 2013.

One day later, in the first significant resistance to President Obama’s concentration of presidential power, a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington DC unanimously said that Obama’s Recess Appointments to the National Labor Relations Board are unconstitutional. Similar litigation testing the Cordray appointment to the CFPB is in the pipeline.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) created by the 2,319 page Dodd-Frank legislation is a new and little known bureau with wide-ranging powers. Placed within the Federal Reserve, a corporation privately owned by member banks, the CFPB is insulated from oversight by either the President or Congress, its budget not subject to legislative control. It is not even clear that a new President can replace the CFPB director on taking office.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pope Benedict XVI to Resign at the End of February

/4 Comments/in , /by

Pope Benedict XVI will resign at the end of February, the Vatican Press Office tells Fox News.

The 85-year-old pontiff made the announcement Monday, saying he no longer had the strength to carry out his papal duties.

“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” the pope said according to a statement released by the Vatican.

He said he is aware of the “seriousness” of his resignation, but that he did so in “full freedom.”

The last pope to resign was Pope Gregory XII, who stepped down in 1415 in a deal to end the Great Western Schism among competing papal claimants. The sudden announcement sets the stage for the Vatican to hold a conclave to elect a new pope by mid-March, since the traditional mourning time that would follow the death of a pope doesn’t have to be observed. There are several papal contenders in the wings, but no obvious front-runner, according to Vatican watchers.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Needs More Revenue: Is He Coming For Your 401(K) Next?

/5 Comments/in , /by

NEW YORK – Two years ago, as WND reported, the Obama administration was proceeding with a novel way to finance trillion-dollar budget deficits by forcing IRA and 401(k) holders to buy Treasury bonds by mandating the placement of government-structured annuities in their retirement accounts.

Remarkably, those financial professionals specializing in private retirement savings and the U.S. citizens investing in private retirement plans now face the possibility the Obama administration and its allies on the political left will impose rules and regulations that effectively abolish the private retirement savings and investment markets.

Recent evidence suggests government officials continue to eye the multi-trillion dollar private retirement savings market, including IRAs and 401(k) plans, eyeing the opportunity to redistribute private retirement savings to less affluent Americans and to force the retirement savings out of the private market and into government-controlled programs investing in government-issued debt.

Government takeover?

An Investment Company Institute study published this month found that U.S. retirement assets totaled $18.5 trillion at the end of the second quarter 2012, of which 3.5 trillion was in IRAs and $5.1 trillion was in 401(k) plans.

Since 2010, the U.S. Treasury Department and the Department of Labor have been holding combined hearings on various plans designed to introduce government-mandated retirement plans and investment options, including government annuities invested primarily in U.S. Treasury debt, into the private retirement savings market.

Read more from this story HERE.

Study: 83% of Retirees Believe They’ll Lose Their Social Security

/0 Comments/in , /by

photo credit: 401(K) 2012A recent survey by BMO Retirement Institute found 83 percent of retirees were influenced to start their benefits because they were concerned about the viability of the program.

But for Americans nearing retirement age, knowing when to pull the trigger on government retirement benefits is more complicated—or should be.

“People believe that Social Security is something they get when they turn 65. They think there’s only one calculation: I’ll apply when I stop working,” said Rebecca Hall, a private wealth adviser with Ameriprise Financial in Reston, Va., in a recent interview.

How and when you take your benefits, however, can make a difference of thousands of dollars in how much money you draw from the system over the course of your retirement.

And for many Americans, that difference can be crucial. Some 60 percent of Americans 65 and older depend on Social Security for the majority of income, according to an Economic Policy Institute study published last year.

Read more from this story HERE.