The Retirement Crisis No One Talks About

Many of us have seen our retirement savings dwindle alarmingly over the past several months, and the press has covered that story. But when they mention people losing their retirement savings thanks to the stock market meltdown, journalists (who tend to be younger people) follow that up by saying, "People will have to work longer" as if working longer would solve the problems posed by losing most of your retirement income.

But many of us won't have the option of working longer.

Why? Because not everyone ages well. In fact few people over 70 have aged well enough to be able to work a 40 hour a week job that pays enough to cover their bills--even if they could find such a job, which is by no means certain.

Many older people do continue to work after retirement, usually part time and often in jobs that are far less stressful than the ones they retired from. But with advancing age several things happen that make it increasingly hard to hold the kind of job that earns enough to let a person live at even a level of genteel poverty.

Energy levels drop. This may be due to subtle metabolic problems, but even in the healthiest old people changes associated with normal aging may cause them to develop problems with sleep which prevent them from getting the rest that they need.

Hearing and vision begin to fail. This process might be accelerated for people with problems like diabetes, but even in the healthiest older people genetics seems to play a large role in age-related hearing loss and the likelihood of developing age related macular degeneration, which is the most common cause of blindness in the non-diabetic elderly.

Mobility becomes a problem. Joints wear out after 70 or 80 years of use and everything from walking to typing on a keyboard becomes more painful. Ironically, the popularity of running, biking, and other sports that hasten the deterioration of joints may make this an even bigger problem for the Baby Boom generation than it was for our elders whose idea of "exercise" was more likely to be a gentle stroll around the golf course rather than training for a marathon.

The brain deteriorates. This, when it comes to aging, is the elephant in the room which no one likes to talk about. Yes, there are those "wonderful" old people who are a sharp at 90 as they were in their teens, but they are a tiny minority. For most of us, the progress from our 50s to our 90s will involve subtle deterioration of our memory, our ability to think creatively, and most importantly, our judgment.

Most of us assume that we will know it when these changes occur and be able to ask for help. But those of us who have watched our parents age know that the exact opposite happens. As mental functions decline people rarely are aware that their ability to think is deteriorating. They may also develop paranoia and react very badly to anyone who tries to intervene--including an employer who may be troubled by evidence that the older employee is making mistakes that could harm the business.

These issues, a mix of which affect most older people to some extent, is why there comes a time when most people have to retire and why it is so important that there must be some way to support old people through the period--which is often a long one--after they are no longer able to earn their own livings.

We already knew that a major crisis is looming ahead in America as the Baby Boom population as a whole has never had the kind of savings that its parents accumulated. Some of this was due to people spending more than they should have, because of the Consumer Culture which urged them to buy things they really could not afford.

But I don't think this is the whole story. Many people of my generation have not been able to save because real wages have been stagnant for years and many hardworking people of my generation have never been able to earn more than it took to pay for housing, food, transportation, heat, health care, and eduction for their kids.

The loss of money invested in the "safe" vehicles that have been sold to us as ideal for our retirement nest eggs will force a lot of people of the Baby Boomer generation into the same needy situation they once thought would be the fate only of those who had been imprudent.

Social Security will help some people far more than others. Those who are winners are those who earned large salaries throughout their working lives. They may get payments in the $25,000 a year range which is enough to prevent poverty.

But for those of us who worked in the kinds of careers that do not produce large salaries or who took time out to raise children, or whose health problems made it hard to work full time in our younger years, Social Security may provide as little as $12,000 a year. And given that the median family income in our nation hovers around $42,000 a year, this is the situation most American workers fall into.

So what happens when you have many tens of millions of aging Baby Boomer people who do not have the physical ability to work at jobs that could pay enough to cover their costs for shelter, food, heat, and health care? How far are they going to get living on $1200 a month? Who's going to be looking out for them? What can government do now that so much of our national assets have been squandered on unnecessary wars and bailing out the super rich who have paid for the lobbyists who have written our national tax policy for so long?

One thing is certain: We're going to find out.