As Americans draw nearer and nearer to retirement, most of find themselves pondering the appropriate age to step away from our daily grind. For the past couple decades, the standard age of retirement was 65, but more and more Americans are planning on staying in the workforce for a while longer. Whether it’s due to poor retirement planning, economic upheaval or just a desire to keep working, the age of retirement keeps climbing.
In a recent Gallup survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults, 636 of which were retirees, 37 percent said they expected to be working past the age of 65. A similar study in 1995 showed only 14 percent with that projection. The projected ages of the surveyed population that was nearing retirement age (58-64) were older ages than those under 30, likely due to a more accurate outlook on their retirement future. “People who are very near retirement age, in their 50s and 60s, are looking at their Social Security benefits, 401(k) balance, their cost of living, medical costs and food costs and have a better sense of what things might be like when they actually retire,” says managing editor of Gallup Poll, Jeffrey Jones. “They are more aware that early retirement might not be as much of a realistic option for people today as it was 30 or 40 years ago.
In addition to the population that needs more time to financially prepare for retirement, many are who are prepared financially are still planning to work through their retirement. Gallup found that of the 75 percent of retirement-age Americans who planned to keep working, 35 percent needed to, but 40 percent of them wanted to. The majority said they preferred to work part time, but surprisingly only 19 percent of those surveyed planned to completely stop working.
Source: US NEWS