Squared Away Blog

By their early 60s, four out of five workers have chronic health problems. One in four has developed some type of physical or cognitive limitation. If these problems force them to stop working, they can apply to Social Security for disability. But developing a disability late in a career still has long-term financial consequences. These workers not only give up their steady paychecks. Their preparations for retirement are also derailed at a critical time. A 2018 study in the Journal of Disability and Policy Studies quantifies the financial fallout. Four groups were compared, each ranging in age from 67 to 69. One started receiving disability benefits sometime between 58 and 62. A second group went on disability between 62 and…

Perceptions of older workers haven’t caught up with the reality of their increasingly prominent role in the labor force. The federal Administration for Community Living reports that the U.S. population over age 60 has surged nearly 40 percent in just the past decade. By 2030, retirees will outnumber children for the first time in history, the U.S. Census Bureau predicts. The world population is on a similar path. But in the face of this significant demographic shift, discriminatory views of older people persist in obvious and subtle ways. This discrimination colors coworkers’ beliefs about, among other things, older workers’ mental ability, efficiency, and competence on the job, according to one international review of studies on aging. When people think about…

If a 60-year-old baby boomer started saving consistently at the beginning of his career back in the 1980s, he would have some $364,000 in his 401(k)s and IRAs today. How much does he actually have? One-fourth of that, according to a new study from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (CRR). One obvious explanation for the enormous gap is that the 401(k) system was in its infancy in the 1980s, and it took time for employers to widely adopt the plans and for young adults to get into the habit of saving for retirement. Another likely reason is the large share of workers who do not have any type of employer-sponsored retirement plan.  This coverage gap, which predates…

The baby boom generation is continuing to work its way up the age ladder. The number of Americans over 80 will more than double to nearly 18 million over the next two decades. And that’s partly because baby boomers are healthier and are living longer – they are also enjoying more of their retirement years free of disability than previous generations.  But unfortunately, boomers can’t avoid the inevitability of their growing vulnerabilities and the impact this will have on their day-to-day lives. A new report by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies makes some sobering predictions about the issues the oldest retirees can expect to face in the future, from widening income inequality to more people living alone and in…

Workers are apparently very eager to get their hands on the money in their retirement savings plans. The evidence is the spike in withdrawals from IRA accounts that occurs soon after people turn 59½, the age at which the IRS’ 10 percent penalty on early withdrawals vanishes and is no longer a deterrent, according to a research study. Average annual withdrawals from IRA accounts surge by about $1,965 to $3,540 – an 80 percent increase – after people cross the age 59½ threshold, according to the study, which was conducted for NBER’s Retirement Research Center by researchers at Stanford University, the University of Chicago, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. Early withdrawals from tax-deferred retirement accounts – IRAs and…

Reforms to Medicare Part D under the Affordable Care Act brought significant relief to retirees by reducing the share of medication costs they must pay out of their own pockets. But with the healthcare reform now nearly a decade old, other developments have taken over that will drive up drug costs for the most vulnerable retirees – the biggest users of expensive brand name drugs. Although only a few million people will be affected, they are already saddled with the highest spending burden. This vulnerable group could get some help from Congress. There is bipartisan support for placing an absolute limit on how much Part D policyholders must pay in total for their prescriptions, said Juliette Cubanski, associate director of…

What kind of financial shape are retirees in? A 2017 study refocused attention on this old question, and it has taken on greater urgency as more and more baby boomers retire. The study looked at the accuracy of the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey (CPS) and confirmed earlier research showing that it dramatically under-estimates retirees’ income. The under-reporting in the CPS could raise concerns about the accuracy of other surveys that paint a less-than-rosy picture of retirement life. To get to the bottom of things, the Center for Retirement Research (CRR) dug into other standard sources of survey data on retired households so they could be compared with CPS data. They found that the income estimates in the CPS…

Two out of three U.S. retirees do not have dental insurance. Their basic choice is paying their dentist bills directly or, if they can’t afford it, forgoing care. A new report analyzes the pros and cons of one potential solution to this pervasive problem: adding dental coverage to Medicare. Several bills that have circulated in Congress, including the Seniors Have Eyes, Ears, and Teeth Act of 2019, would do just that. This approach recognizes that teeth and gums have everything to do with one’s health, said Meredith Freed, a policy analyst for the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Medicare policy program. Elderly people with loose or missing teeth have difficulty eating nutritious but hard-to-chew foods. Gum disease, left untreated, increases the risk…

Roughly half of U.S. employers with a 401(k) plan enroll their workers automatically, deducting money from their paychecks for retirement unless they explicitly opt out of this arrangement. This strategy is widely viewed as a good way to get people to save. But auto-enrollment might not be as effective as it seems, if individuals are compensating for a smaller paycheck by borrowing more. A new study of civilian employees of the U.S. Army used credit and payroll data to gauge whether debt increased for employees who were automatically enrolled in the federal government’s retirement savings plan. The researchers compared changes in debt levels for people hired after the government’s 2010 adoption of auto-enrollment with hires prior to 2010. The good…

The decline in U.S. life expectancy is unlike anything we’ve seen   Bombshell headlines like this popped up in major news outlets last November after the government reported that life expectancy in 2017 fell for the third year in a row. This is a troubling break from the steady improvements in lifespans since 1900, which were powered by a combination of medical breakthroughs and healthcare policy. Early in the 20th century, antibiotics dramatically increased infant lifespans. Later, new treatments like statins and stents, as well as expanded access to healthcare through Medicare and Medicaid, increased life expectancy across the age range. But there’s another story behind this story: life expectancy very much depends on where one falls on the economic ladder…

Rural hospital closings can be a matter of life or death. Residents in these remote locations may have to drive 100 miles or more for emergency medical care. One new study found that hospital closings increase mortality in rural areas by 6 percent. No such impact occurred in urban areas with multiple medical centers. Both urban and rural hospitals serving poor and low-income patients face myriad financial pressures, led by Medicare and Medicaid’s relatively low reimbursement rates for their disproportionate numbers of older and sicker patients. The 2013 federal budget, which cut Medicare reimbursements for hospitals and physicians by 2 percent, compounded the problems. But what has become increasingly clear in rural areas is that the option given to states…

You’re as young as you feel! This cliché is meant to be uplifting to older people. But it really just begs the question: what, exactly, is it that makes a person feel young? Having a sense of control over the events in one’s life is the answer that emerged from a 2019 study of 60- to 90-year-olds in the Journal of Gerontology. “[B]elieving that your daily efforts can result in desired outcomes” lines up nicely with what the researchers call “a younger subjective age.” This makes a lot of sense. Feeling in control becomes important as we age, because it counteracts our growing vulnerabilities – we can’t move as fast, hear as well, or remember as much. Wresting back som…