The report found that the “forgotten generation” faces a “dismal” retirement future. The typical Gen X household — with those born between 1965 and 1980 — has around $40,000 saved for retirement, while the bottom half of savers only have a few thousands banked.
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I had plenty of retirement money until the Democrats started giving free money to everyone else. Now with the new Democrat caused inflation and taxes it is close these days and I have been completely out of debt for over 20 years. The democrats have driven the wealth and pay disparity through the roof with their vote buying and over payments for equity.
ReplyDelete"Slightly over half of Gen-Xers have employer-sponsored retirement plans, the report found. Most members — regardless of race, gender or income — are also failing to meet retirement savings targets."
ReplyDeleteCan we spell "You're spending more money than you're making," boys and girls?...
Solution: SPEND LESS MONEY THAN YOU'RE MAKING!!! Remember kids, when you put your life on credit cards, SOMEONE is getting rich and it SURELY isn't YOU!!!
I'm glad I'm a member of the "Silent" generation (Google it) where frugality was the key note life style..
ReplyDeleteYes, you're lucky to have made enough to save money. Even been frugal wages have been stagnant for my entire working life.
DeleteI would suggest the following:
ReplyDelete1. Most genX understand that, with all that is happening and all that we face, this idea of 'retirement' will not apply. Soon.
2. Speaking for myself, given all that was happening when I was young, and the prospects of various scenarios becoming more and more likely, I honestly didn't expect to live this long. Since I matured, my retirement investments have consisted of preps focusing on the 3B's. Tangibles-heavy, for sure.
It's new world, and the old rules are rapidly being eclipsed. My parents were the last...
Mike in Canada
It won't be a nightmare if you never retire. Clearly this was their intent.
ReplyDeleteA combo of bad spending habits, plus the various overt and sneak govt taxes that take so much away from you - just so they can return a small portion back to you when/if you retire.
ReplyDeleteI invested in my retirement 2 weeks ago. New TIG welder with one mangled tip, MIG welder with 2 pounds used of the original 10-pound spool, 40 amp plasma cutter, all in a big cart filled with consumables to last a long time.
ReplyDeleteHe didn't want to separate, and nobody else can swing a $2K nut at once, I guess...
And it'll be useful for patching the floor in the $300 '91 K-5 Jimmy I picked up last weekend.
Retirement indeed, only 20 years until I'm 67 and really looking forward to the Social Security I've paid into all my life like a Boomer.
Saved as what? Bank accounts and bonds? Physical gold? Land? The focus on the material is how we get into all these troubles.
ReplyDeleteSo the same article that says "About 18 percent of Gen Xers have no retirement savings,..." also says "U.S. Census data found that nearly half of Baby Boomers and more than half of all workers don’t have any retirement savings." Must be a Gen X problem.
ReplyDeleteGet job at ammo plant. Work a couple years. Boom, problem solved.
ReplyDeleteYou left out the part about working another 25 years in a warehouse picking orders and loading trucks.
DeleteMore worthless words of wisdom from a guy that goes by the moniker 'Anonymous'. Why am I not surprised?
DeleteI'm afraid they are too overworked to understand your sense of humor :) But it is their fault :)
Deletew.
Kinda hard for me to work up much sympathy. So far as I know, there has never been a time like the '90s to grow an investment, so long as you had the sense to be diversified into something more than just dot-com. We put $2k (the limit at the time) into a mostly S&P index fund with a smattering of mutual fun options for my son's college when he was born, and it grew to just shy of $60k. Did the same for my daughter a few years later, but it only made it to about $45k because the market wasn't quite as good. But since it an after-tax investment, not one of those special tax deferred education plans, they had a fair chunk left over to spend on getting set up.
ReplyDeleteWhich underscores how much everyone got screwed by Social Security. Imagine putting aside more than 5 times that, every year you worked, and having a pittance to show for it. A pittance that probably won't be there anyway.
The article neglected to mention the large number of pension plans that are nearly insolvent, so that those who retired with a pension may soon end up losing that income that acts as their retirement savings. Then, there are those who thought they had enough saved up, only to find that inflation has caused their retirement savings to be insufficient.
ReplyDeleteI am one of those who would be lumped into the category of insufficient retirement savings. Of course, a) I don't really expect to live long enough to retire, or b) I don't expect the economy or country to last long enough for me to retire which would result in any and all retirement savings to disappear.
Problem is, and I'm sure Kenny can relate, that it's impossible to predict what the idiots that get elected in federal government will fuck up and significantly increase the cost of living.
ReplyDeleteMy suggestion is to cut wasteful spending as much as possible, pay off your high interest credit cards then cut them up, pay off your home, put as much into your employer's matching 401K as legally allowed and learn to live with less, a lot less .... Today's lifestyle is not sustainable in a retirement situation for most....
JD
"$40,000 average retirement savings"
ReplyDeleteA really useless number if we don't report the credit card or other debts at retirement.
Well to start with the problem is they all think they need to retire at 55. Unless you have been an over paid government employee all your life where you get paid double what the private sector pays, that is just unrealistic.
ReplyDeleteSo true says the Retired School Teacher Hahahahahaha yeah right!
DeleteMillennial here. My savings are cushy for the current times but in practice it's a joke and would barely cover some car repairs. I'm in my 30s, I have no traditional retirement account anymore, just my own hopes and the possibility of inheriting land from family. My sole-proprietorship is growing but it's not enough and my customers are strapped for money as well; thus my college classes start in a few weeks. I don't know if I'll even use the degree for a job since the job would be all-consuming live-to-work, but it might be a passport to a better country. I intend to put the housing allowance from my BI bill into my business to make it more efficient; as well as get some of that thing called “life”.
ReplyDeleteThe compensation for pursuing white-collar skills, like pharmacology, engineering, material science, etc, is comical. The incentive to enter the rat-race is a mere subsistence living and being chained to my employment. People get one life on this earth, why squander those years getting a high-skill degree that won’t be compensated fairly?
Previous generations trashed this country and both my generation and the zoomer generation have little hope for a respectable retirement. Thanks to the FED, the currency is nearly worthless; every drop of value has been squeezed out of the cattle, uh, consumer via obscene executive compensation and shareholder demands. This is the world my generation gets to attempt success in, a world in which infinite growth is expected from finite resources. I detest the idea of retirement anyway and I think we have been indoctrinated backwards. We aren’t guaranteed another moment, much living to 65 while still being able-bodied, I could become paralyzed on the way to class. No! People should balance work and life, they should go live while they are young and able to enjoy it; THEN, when their bodies are old and used up, they can work full time if they want to. The idea that people should wait until they are too old, flabby, and feeble, to travel, to hike the Appalachian trail or Continental Divide is utterly absurd. That people should have meager two weeks vacation to go “live”, then return to being a wage slave is an insult to what life was supposed to be, something to be enjoyed.
If I enter the workforce as a professional, I’ll likely flee the United States as soon as possible. I'll move back to my ancestral homeland where I have rights, labor unions, statutory vacation time, industry that respects work-life balance, and an overall slower pace of life; without all the woke, multi-culture. The United states is effectively last place when it comes to employment and general quality of life; exhausting my benefits before immigrating is actually a primary plan, along with van life.
When people have to choose between food and gas, they can't afford a retirement plan.
- Arc
BS AI reply.
DeletePrevious generations trashed this country and both my generation and the zoomer generation have little hope for a respectable retirement.
DeleteLet's talk about this statement, who and what previous generations are you referring to ???
The ones that built the structures you live in, built the roads you drive on, the electrical power generation systems you use and probably most everything else in your life you enjoy ??? Those generations ??
Be careful about pointing fingers while enjoying the comforts provided by those you trash... it could come back to bite you on your ass
JD
The Silent and Boomer generations are by-far the most grievous offenders, but predominately boomer. Nixon took us off the gold standard because the FED would not cease in printing un-backed certificates and the treasury was bleeding gold. The Silent and Boomer generations decided cheap-shoring jobs was more important than a future for Americans. They replaced Americans with H1B Dots from India which undercut our doctors and programmers. The same generations that refuse to get out of career politics and dragged us into war with Iraq(TWICE), Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya; the same generations that now want us to go to war with Russia, China, and Iran, so they and their cronies can pad their already obscene accounts while expanding establishment power. War overseas was and apparently still is more important to them than maintaining our infrastructure at home.
DeleteThankfully, the Silent and Boomer generation are almost completely retired and the remaining politicians from the Silent gen are a few years away from stroking out; likely the only way they will ever leave office. It’s left to my generation, and the Zoomers to try to pick up the pieces of a ruined country, though I will probably go to one that hasn't been destroyed and under invasion. Enjoy having Rashana and Abdul prepare your food at the retirement village, I'm sure they will do a great job.
-Arc
^^^ What he said.
DeleteThat's it, junior. You're cut off. No more Hot Pockets for you. And pay your own damned Netflix bill.
@Arc, if it's truly left to your generation of trannies, social media influencers, and whiners to fix things, then we truly are fucked. Your generation can't even drive a stick shift.
Delete@Arc..... I had my own business for many years, it entailed maintaining several rental properties, apartments, for a couple different property management agencies, about 200 different apartments in total. I had a crew of 30 and we took care of everything from removing left over crap, cleaning the apartments, repairs to electrical, plumbing, paint, replacing carpet and so on..Of those 30 I had 1 that was under the age of 40, not that I wouldn't hire a younger person but they were as a whole lazy fucking complainers that would miss work regularly.... I retired then ended up going back in business due a hurricane that came through and tore up everything, and those property managers not being able to find reliable crews to do the job. Again these crews were older with skills and were reliable, no whiners needed or wanted... So when you run your limited knowledge mouth about shit you have no idea about you show all how ignorant you are.
DeleteJD
GenX here. Went to college because that used to be how you got ahead. Computer Science degree (was the new thing back then). Economy down in mid 80s at graduation, so no job. Went back for an MBA. Economy down again two years later, so took forever to get hired. Got hired an immediately started 401k-ing. No one remembers the dot-com bust? Then the 2008 financial crisis? So a person learns their lesson and moves money in bonds and CDs. Extended Fed rate supression much? And who needs to employ a CS major when there's India and green cards. Hey, how about sending your kids to college? What cost me $4k/yr to do back in my day now cost $40k/yr, and that's a state school. Add taxes and inflation to being alive nowadays and the net is <0. None of that is bad personal decisions.
ReplyDeleteYep. A mere local community college costs $24,000 for a two year associates which is essentially worthless. That pricing doesn’t include the cost of living or lost wages and revenue. A four year degree is the new highschool diploma / check in the box that means "not a bum", and that costs an estimated $50,000. TMK, college only became the hot, must-have thing during WW2 when the GI bill was created and all the GI’s came home. 49% of new admissions in 1947 were veterans. I recall the "Great Society" came a bit later had subsidies for everyone else. I wonder what all this free money will do the price of a college degree? Charts indicate it skyrocketed around 1950 and is now more or less unaffordable.
DeleteAs I said in my previous comment, who would waste so many years of their life and take on a lifetime of debt for a skill that won't be fairly compensated? I'm only attending because It's free for me and I want to use my benefits before they are inflated away; likewise it's a passport to a better life overseas.
Colleges have finally caught on to to the notion that students are really just customers shopping for the degree and the "college experience"; thus have an interest in graduating as many people as possible. A college offers me nothing in the way of knowledge that I can't get for free; all the United States taxpayers are buying for me is a piece of paper.
- Arc
Look if you don't want to shop around, you will likely get shafted. Purdue (Lafayette Campus) is ranked around #4 or #5 engineering college in the nation, depending on who you look at. Tuition -- $9,992 per year, about 10% higher for Junior and Senior level classes. Granted 3-4 times what I paid, but then again back then if you were in the top few percent of the graduating class, you could maybe pull $17k per year, or $8.50 per hour.
DeleteUnless you are talking CalTech or MIT or something like that, if you are paying $40k per year, just look in the mirror to see who the sucker is.
Or you could whine about it. Whatever works, I guess.
GenX as well. After high school I worked digging holes for irrigation systens at $4.25/hour. Sucked, put in my 20 with the military and worked my way through college. now close to retirement with a seven figure nest egg. Wife and I worked our asses off and didn't splurge on every toy that came along but still managed to take a vacation now and then. Hard work DOES pay off, not laying around complaining how bad you have it.
ReplyDeletePeople really need to follow the link to the 26 page report. People who have ZERO retirement savings drag the overall savings down to the $40k number. I have found over the years, that the people who pay attention to their money won't/don/t really need to worry about retirement.
ReplyDeleteI work with Ken, and our pension plan was $x.xx number was added to our account based on number of hours worked up to 40 hours a week and nothing for overtime. So the payout for everyone is different depending on the total hours worked. Their were people who took every opportunity to leave work early or just not work their weekly hours. I know of one guy who managed to never get fired and worked only 1000 hours and then complained that his pension payout was lower than mine even though we both had been there 25 years. He failed to understand how the pension worked but could rattle off sports facts about his team.
There is a saying that crosses all generations, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”.
I'm reminded of my brother. He had an interruption in employment about 3 years ago, so he halted his RRSP (Canadian retirement savings) contributions, for obvious reasons. He's since landed on his feet in a big way. Bought a house with a fairly big mortgage and everything. Instead of resuming his investing and spending the extra $10,000 he had after last year on maybe doing something like paying down the mortgage on a house he's NEVER willingly selling, he spent it all on 8 days on Mexico.
ReplyDeleteI don't tolerate it when he whines about stuff like how much dog food costs.
This article is the same crud I have read all my working life. Only the names are changed.
ReplyDeleteA friend, the airline pilot, watched his pension whittled away by the union and government. Then, in one fell swoop, his pension decreased by 30% in contract negotiations when the union made big concessions (but the union heads made out like royalty).
When he retired after decades at the airline, his airline pension was 15% the value it would have been but for the union and U.S. Congress.
A couple of years ago I compared statements from the Social Security. I noticed that the newer statement said my monthly would be $247 less than what the ten year older statement said.
In ten years, my SS monthly decreased (by Congressional decree) even though tens of thousands of dollars from my earnings had been added.
Too, while in the workforce, one looks to decrease their tax liability. There are advantages in this. But it comes back to bite you when applying for a mortgage, or funding the SSA account, or other financial planning.
I think it especially rich that one of the comments here uses acts with deleterious effects by government to lambast entire generations. Good luck to that young puddinghead.
Making this subject into a war between generations is to miss the point.