The Coming Great American Retirement Crisis

by admin on April 29, 2019

The Great American Retirement Crisis: How We Got Here

The American Dream used to be: you work hard, you save your money, you live within your means, you have a few kids and raise them to respect others regardless of difference in opinion, you teach them to value and uphold the US Constitution, and when you hit your 60’s, you hang it all up and relax the rest of your days away.

Now, that concept is no longer a viable possibility for most Americans retiring in 2019. The reasons are many, so let’s cover a few key facts right now to see how to better understand what’s unfolding, and how to deal with it.

Retirement Costs Money

And lots of it, too. The simple facts are most Americans end up drawing around $1,400/month from Social Security, and the average 401k has about $95,000. Over half of American retirees have investments and money heavily invested in the stock market.

If retirement lasts 20 years, then that means $95,000 divided by 20 years, which leaves about $5,000/year on top of social security.

That means many Americans will be expected to live on $2k – 3k a month, hardly enough to spend lots of leisure time hitting the golf course or traveling and dining out at nice restaurants.

Throw in the cost of medical care which continues to grow into older age, and you’ve got a lot of people who can expect to live near the poverty line in their golden years.

Americans Save Less Money Now Than Ever

In what appears to be a fiscal epidemic, more Americans don’t have savings any more. About 50% of Americans don’t even have $500 saved for a rainy day.

Among retirees, 42% of Americans have less than $10,000 saved, meaning they will count exclusively on their Social Security check for survival.

Even selling a house and liquidating all that equity won’t mean a comfortable retirement for most, and now the news is reporting that many senior Americans won’t be able to afford housing or senior assisted living.

Indeed, not only is the American Dream fading away before our very eyes, it seems many people will actually live in poverty.

Social Security Will Pay Much Less Soon, and Run Out of Cash Reserves in its Trust Fund

By 2034, The Social Security will no longer be able to pay out its max benefit, as its reserves will have run out and it will only be able to pay that which it immediately takes in, which is about 77% for social security and 96% for disability.

So for younger Americans who are having trouble even entering the workforce due to most new jobs being taken by people 55 or older, when they eventually draw Social Security benefits, they will likely be less than 77%.

FDR’s Grand New Deal Was Nothing More than a Ponzi Scheme All Along

It is becoming increasingly clear that the idea that big daddy government will take care of you from cradle to grave has finally been disproven. while Social Security was never intended to be used as the sole source of retirement income, it’s now showing how unreliable it will be for future generations of Americans even to supplement their retirement, if they can even afford to call it one.