Low-income workers unprepared for retirement.

Longer life expectancy, complicated retirement savings systems leaving many low-income workers unprepared for retirement.

In a virtual webinar developed as a collaboration between the Stanford Center on Longevity and the Longevity Project speakers spoke to the idea that almost half of all U.S. families reported lacking any retirement savings beyond Social Security, according to the Economic Policy Institute. In addition, with life expectancy continuing to increase, many retirees may not be prepared to finance these longer lives.

Speakers also noted that more people are entering retirement these days with debt than they had in the past, which creates an additional drain on retiree’s spending. Pair that with the havoc the COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked on the Social Security trust fund reserves and the fact that many retirees eventually will need extended long-term services and support raises concerns about retirement and Social Security.

Not all the panellists were quite as concerned about the current retirement system, however.

One speaker noted that when you look at the data, we’ve really come a very long way from the golden era of traditional defined pensions and more Americans are participating in retirement plans than ever before.

In addition, more and more retirees have been building in a fourth pillar to the traditional three retirement pillars of Social Security: workplace retirement plans and personal savings, they are choosing to work in some form after entering “retirement.”

The definition of work has evolved and changed over the years, and many people are finding ways to monetize their years in traditional retirement.

This is great for the first 10 to 15 years of retirement but it may be a problem in the last 15 years of retirement.