Concerns Expressed About Savings and Social Security Covering Retiree Expenses

Published in the Woonsocket Call on May 5, 2019

What resolution did you make as new year’s eve approached Dec. 31, 2018? You might have mentioned losing weight, or improving your health by eating healthy foods and regularly exercising. Better budgeting and saving money for retirement might have even made your short list, too.

According to a new national AARP study, reported in Financial Resolutions, Mistakes and Accomplishments, 83 percent of the 1,500 adults (age 35 and over), participating in an online survey, say they made a new year’s resolution or goal within the past five years. Over half (52 percent) say that saving money was their top resolution pick, followed by losing weight (43 percent), increasing fitness (40 percent), and getting better organized (40 percent).

Saving Money Most Popular 2019 Resolution

Sixty percent of those surveyed say polled noted that their 2019 savings resolution included a mix of short-term and long-term goals. Adults ages 35-39 (75 percent) are more likely to have made this resolution, compared to the respondents ages 50-54 (50 percent) and those ages 65 and over (45 percent). The most common goals mentioned by these poll respondents were building of an emergency fund (45 percent), paying off debt (37 percent), saving for vacation (41 percent), building up retirement fund (35 percent), and making home improvements (31 percent)

Just two months into 2019, when AARP’s poll was taken in March, 43 percent of the respondents who made a savings resolution for 2019, expressed concern that they were already at risk of not meeting this goal, tying their failure to unexpected expenses (61 percent), covering basic expenses (46 percent), or a drop in their income (20 percent) due to unemployment or a business slowdown.

The survey respondents say the most common financial mistake relates to not saving (19 percent), followed by buying on credit (10 percent), accumulating too much credit card debt (10 percent) and spending too much (8 percent).

By gender, when compared to men, women are especially likely to say their mistakes were related to credit cards and loans. Men point to mistakes related to making poor stock market decisions, bad investments or not investing.

The AARP survey findings reveal that making financial mistakes can have a lasting impact, too. Over 55 percent say that their mistake is still affecting their current financial situation.

Fifty-nine percent of those polled by AARP said it was only “somewhat likely” to “not at all likely” that the combination of their savings, investments and Social Security benefits would be sufficient to cover their financial needs throughout retirement. This included more women (67 percent) than men (51 percent). Only 41 percent of all respondents said their retirement assets are “very” or “extremely” likely to pay for their needs through retirement.
Over 35 percent of those who are uncertain whether they have enough money to live in retirement attribute their doubts to either not knowing how much money they will need in retirement (31 percent) or not knowing how much to save (9 percent), notes the AARP survey findings.

The AARP survey is in line with a recent updated report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office that found most households approaching retirement have low amounts of savings. When polled about their “biggest financial mistakes” in the AARP survey, respondents said their most common mistakes related to not saving enough.

“The situation is serious, but not one that can’t be improved,” said AARP Financial Ambassador Jean Chatzky, in a statement released with the report. “No matter your circumstance, there are resources available to help almost anyone take simple steps to improve your finances, start a savings plan and get into the habit of putting away money on a regular basis,” says Chatzky.

Education combined with learning simple steps to assist in saving more money are key help people make more informed decisions that result in either saving inadequately or accumulating debt, especially with credit cards.

Check Out These Savings and Planning Tools

Do you need to beef up on your knowledge on ways to better save for your retirement? If so, check out these websites…

AceYourRetirement.org, a website sponsored by AARP and the Ad Council, breaks down the retirement savings process into easy, actionable steps. Just answer a few questions about your savings and goals, and you will receive a personalized action plan that highlights three practical next steps.

AARP’s Money Essentials webpage offers advice about saving, living on a budget, managing debt and other topics.

The Social Security Resource Center provides answers to questions about when to claim, how to maximize benefits and other Social Security essentials.

A new AARP podcast, Closing the Savings Gap™, hosted Chatzky profiles women who are facing a retirement savings gap and matches each with a financial planner who then helps them solve common challenges in retirement planning.

AARP’s website also provides work, career and employment resources to help you maximize your earning potential.

For full access to the 38 page research report, Financial Resolutions, Mistakes and Accomplishments, go to http://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/surveys_statistics/econ/2019/financial-resolutions-mistakes-accomplishments.doi.10.26419-2Fres.00309.001.pdf.

For more information, contact S. Kathi Brown of AARP Research at skbrown@aarp.org or G. Oscar Anderson at ganderson@aarp.org.

NCPSSM Says It Pays Off to Delay Claiming Social Security Benefits

Published in Woonsocket Call on April 28, 2019

You have an eight-year window to choose to sign up for Social Security to collect your monthly benefit check. Some may be forced to collect Social Security at age 62, because of their finances, health and lifestyle. Others make a decision to wait until either age 66 (if you were born after 1954) or 67 (or born in 1960 or after) to collect full monthly benefits. While some even choose to wait until age 70, if they financially can, to get the maximum program benefits.

For this age 64-year old writer and to many of my older peers in their 60s, determining the right age to collect Social Security can be confusing at best. Will my decision, to make less by collecting at age 62 or more by waiting until full benefits are paid at age 66 or 67 or waiting to receive maximum benefits at age 70, provide me with adequate retirement income to pay my bills into my eighties or even nineties? The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM) hopes to assist older workers to make the right decision for them through a new educational campaign, Delay & Gain.

Educational Campaign Kicks Off in Five Cities

This month, the NCPSSM kicks off a new educational campaign, Delay & Gain, to urge workers in their 60s to opt for more money, up to thousands of dollars per year in additional Social Security benefits, by working at least until their normal retirement age 66 or 67. Filing for Social Security at age 62 locks you into a lower benefit, permanently. You are not entitled to 100 percent of the benefit calculated from your earnings history unless you apply at your age 66 or 67
Launched by the Washington, DC-based NCPSSM, Delay & Gain includes a six-figure ad campaign targeting five U.S. cities where workforce participation is high, but too many workers are losing money by choosing to retire early.

According to NCPSSM, more than one-third of American workers claim Social Security at the early retirement age of 62, lowering their monthly benefits for the rest of their lives. In a recent survey of American workers, nearly half of respondents did not know that their monthly Social Security benefits will be reduced by claiming at the earliest eligible age of 62 — and boosted up to 25 percent for waiting until the full retirement age of 66. Seniors who delay claiming until age 70 receive an even larger financial bump — up to 44 percent more than if they had filed for benefits early. For the average beneficiary that can mean a difference of roughly $1,000 per month in extra income.

“We understand that not all workers have the option of working longer due to poor health, caregiving demands, age discrimination or physically demanding work. But we consistently hear from seniors who retired early because they were sick and tired of working, who soon discovered that they were more sick and tired of not having enough money in retirement,” says Max Richtman, NCPSSM’s President and CEO in an April 8 statement announcing this new initiative.

Many Benefits of Working Longer

The risks of running out of money in later life are very evident, says NCPSSM. “Some 8 percent of seniors under 70 live in poverty. But the poverty rate jumps to 12 percent for those over 85. Older women are in greater jeopardy than men, because they tend to live longer, saved less for retirement and lower Social Security benefits. Some 11 percent of all elderly women live in poverty compared to 8 percent of older men,” says NCPSSM, whose chief mission is to protect Social Security and Medicare.

“Because Social Security helps keep seniors out of poverty — and because benefits are adjusted for inflation — it’s imperative that workers maximize their future benefits,” says NCPSSM in its statement. “Retirees rely more and more on Social Security as they age. One-half of all retirees receive most of their income from Social Security. But 42 percent of seniors over age 80 depend on Social Security for almost all their cash income. With one in four 65-year-olds expected to live past 90, it’s evident why workers should try to reap the highest possible monthly benefits. As they say, you can outlive other sources of income, but not Social Security,” notes the aging advocacy group.

The Delay & Gain campaign was rolled-out in Baltimore, Maryland, Davenport, Iowa. Detroit, Michigan, Louisville, Kentucky, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on April 8, 2019. NCPSSM’s campaign will reach out to older workers through radio ads, videos, social media and mobile billboards while providing educational material for distribution and publication to Human Resource departments, community centers and libraries, and financial institutions. The campaign website, delayandgain.org offers additional resources including Ask Us, a free service where Social Security experts answer personal questions about benefits, filing a claim and more.

“We want seniors to be able to pursue a comfortable retirement, with the least amount of stress about paying the bills,” says Richtman. “This campaign will show older workers how to get there,” he notes.

Simply put, NCPSSM’s Delay & Gain initiative, can provide older workers with a simple strategy for planning their retirement, one that just might make their retirement years more comfortable.

Herb Weiss, LRI ’12, is a Pawtucket writer covering aging, health care and medical issues. To purchase Taking Charge: Collected Stories on Aging Boldly, a collection of 79 commentaries, go to herbweiss.com.

Report: Most Working American’s Not Saving for Retirement

Published in the Woonsocket Call on January 12, 2019

Less than four months ago, a research report released by the Washington, D.C.-based National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS), using an analysis of U.S. Census data, found that even with the nation’s economic recovery, savings levels of working age Americans are inadequate for America’s retirees to rely on.

The NIRS report provides analyzes the U.. CSensus Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation data released in 2016 and 2017. Researchers took a look at workplace retirement plan coverage, retirement account ownership, and retirement savings as a percentage of income, and estimates the share of workers that meet financial industry recommended benchmarks for retirement savings.

“The facts and data are clear. Retirement is in peril for most working-class Americans,” says Diane Oakley, the report author and NIRS executive director in a statement. “When all working individuals are considered — not just the minority with retirement accounts — the typical working American has zero, zilch, nothing saved for retirement,” she says.

Oakley added, “What this report means is that the American dream of a modest retirement after a lifetime of work now is a middle-class nightmare. Even among workers who have accumulated savings in retirement accounts, the typical worker had a low account balance of $40,000. This is far off-track from the savings levels Americans need if they hope to sustain their standard of living in retirement.”

American’s Not Prepared for Financially Surviving Retirement Years

Findings in NIRS’s 32-page research report, “Retirement in America: Out of Reach for Most Americans?,” released on September 18, finds that more than 100 million working age individuals (57 percent) do not own any retirement account assets, whether in an employer-sponsored 401(k)-type plan or an IRA nor are they covered by defined benefit plans. Researchers say the data indicated that “those who do own retirement accounts have, on average, more than three times the annual income of individuals who do not own retirement accounts.”

According to the research findings, the typical working age American has no retirement savings. When including all working individuals —not just individuals with retirement accounts—the median retirement account balance is $0 among all working individuals. For the typical workers who have retirement savings accounts, these individual only had a modest account balance of $40,000. “Furthermore, some 68 percent of individuals age 55 to 64 have retirement savings equal to less than one times their annual income, which is far below what they will need to maintain their standard of living over their expected years in retirement,” say the NIRS’s research report.

The research study findings indicate that 77 percent of Americans can not meet conservative retirement savings goals f or their age and income-levels based on working until age 67 even after counting an individuals’ entire net worth. “Due to a long-term trend toward income and wealth inequality that only worsened during the recent economic recovery, a large majority of the bottom half of Americans cannot meet even a substantially reduced savings target,” says the NIRS report.

The researchers say that federal and state policies can assist American’s in accumulating retirement income by strengthening the nation’s Social Security program, by states expanding access to low-cost, high quality retirement plans, and helping low-income workers save. “States across the nation are taking key steps to expand access to workplace retirement savings, with enrollment in state-based programs this year starting in Oregon, Washington and Illinois. Other proposals to expand coverage are on the national agenda but universal retirement plan coverage has not become a national priority. Finally, expanding the Saver’s Credit and making it refundable could help boost the retirement savings of lower-income families,” notes the NIRS report.

Assisting Rhode Islanders to Save for Retirement

In 2016, AARP Rhode Island release a survey of 459 Rhode Island small business owners (with up to 100 employee) to determine their thoughts about employee retirement benefits. Overwhelming, these business owners see a need for lawmakers to create a program to help working Rhode Islanders to save for their retirement years.

According to the AARP telephone poll findings of the small businesses, 76 percent say Rhode Islanders need a lot, some more encouragement to save for retirement. A whopping 82 percent agree that state lawmakers should support small business owners to offer employees a way to save.

Seventy six percent of the respondents agree to being able to offer a voluntary, portable, retirement plans will provide them with a competitive edge to attract or retain employees, notes the poll’s findings.

Most small business owner respondents called on the Rhode Island General Assembly to support state legislation to create a basic, ready-to-go, privately-managed retirement plan for employees. The majority of small business owners who participated in the AARP Rhode Island survey agree that state lawmakers should support a plan to make it easier for small business owners to offer their employees a way to save for retirement.

In 2016, the Rhode Island General Assembly considered AARP Rhode Island’s so-called Work & Save legislation to assist working Rhode Islanders save for their retirement years by establishing a Private Employer IRA Program. But, with spiraling state deficits and the administrative costs of the program, the legislation was held for “further study” immediately killing the legislation.

With America’s aging population, with many not having adequate retirement savings, Congress must move to strengthen the Social Security program. But, the Rhode Island General Assembly must look for ways to expand access to workplace retirement savings through a state-based program. Not doing so may ultimately increase the state’s role in providing assistance to an increasing percentage of low-income older Rhode Island.

Herb Weiss

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