This Guardian article is a pattern for lots to follow in the next few years, as would-be retirees discover that they can’t afford to retire when they’d hoped:
Two-fifths of people who intended to retire this year will have to work for an extra six years because they cannot afford to stop working, according to a study by Prudential.
The pension provider’s Class of 2011 report found that 38% of people are delaying their retirement, and 40% of those say they will have to work until they are 70 to have a comfortable income.
It also shows that 22% of those delaying retirement are doing so because they can’t afford to stop working, up from 15% last year. They had intended, on average, to retire at 62, but now believe they will be at least 68 before they can draw a pension.
Governments in the western world are slowly moving the mandatory retirement age (where it exists), but even in some unionized environments, the benefits workers depend on start to phase out before retirement age. The expectation is that government programs would be there to cover older workers, but governments have little chance of expanding programs during tough economic times.
I wonder what the stats are for government employees. I suspect that they are pretty much in line with the numbers reported by the the Guardian: 38% of government workers believe that 40% of private sector workers should delay their retirement so that the government workers can retire at 50 and have a comfortable income. I’m going to guess, too, that 22% of government workers think the productive class cannot afford to stop working as the number of boats, cottages and winter homes held by government workers is up 15% from last year.
It’s funny how the numbers are remarkably similar on both sides of this issue!
Comment by Lickmuffin — April 13, 2011 @ 08:54