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Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of EricksonTV. Curtis here with Lauren. In
previous episodes we've talked about this strategy: because we've had such difficult
investment markets this past decade, which is actually not all that unusual, there has
been a lot talk of people who have to work further into retirement to support their lifestyle.
There was an article in Tuesday's USA Today with the headline, "Can you really find a
job in retirement?" Not including Walmart greeters.
A representative from AARP said they did extensive surveying of pre-retirees. And different surveys
had numbers of 60-80% of pre-retirees expecting to work into retirement. That may be a part
time job; it may be something to give them a lifestyle of interest. What AARP found was
as of 2012 only 18.2% of people 65 and older are working. They did say that since 1985
that has increased by about 7%. So back in 1985 only about 11% were working. But the
point was they are predicting there will be a big disconnect between people's expectations
and reality. There's a big difference between 18% and 80%. AARP is saying that people are
finding there is still this age discrimination. They also polled people that are retired.
And 17% of those people had to retire because of health issues. So health becomes a part
of it too. What is your takeaway from the expectation versus the actuality?
One interesting way to look at those numbers is that if anywhere close to 80% of people
think they will work into retirement, and then we just heard that about 17% of people
that retired had to quite because of health issues, there are clearly some people that
are just wrong. Even if there's no age discrimination, even if we have a booming economy that can
handle all kinds of new workers coming into the marketplace, lots of people are going
to have to retire because of health. And that's leaving aside every other factor.
And I think even for people that don't have to retire completely because of health issues,
it's a lot harder. It's just a lot harder to do the job. There's a lot of stress that
goes into say starting your own business but somebody that is used to that or is used to
being a contractor is going to have a much easier time in retirement continuing to work
than somebody that's used to being an employee. Because when you're an employee, it's not
just that they control you, they want to be able to control you. And when you become older
it gets harder for them to imagine you in that position.
In the end of this article they came up with a couple pretty good thoughts. They said that
if your expectation is to work into retirement, by all means do everything you can to hold
on to your current job. Don't try to switch jobs because it's very hard to find a new
job. Number two is very obvious, but expect to earn less. Even if it's the same position
because it's just the nature of the game. And last but not least, as you mentioned,
they thought if you have an interest or hobby, maybe think out of the box and consider starting
a small business. Basically hire yourself to come up with part-time income. I thought
those were all pretty good suggestions.