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Showing Original Post only (View all)Have Americans Given Up On Saving for Retirement? [View all]
Have Americans Given Up On Saving for Retirement?
In the wake of the Great Recession, retirement-minded Americans are feeling an unprecedented amount of futility. They are under-saved and worse see little reason to do anything about it.
Thats the alarming conclusion in a new report from the Deloitte Center for Financial Services, which found that 60% of pre-retirees believe health care costs will consume their savings no matter how much they save. Similarly, 39% believe investment returns wont be high enough to provide decent retirement income regardless of how much they manage to put away.
Deloitte found exasperation at every turn: 58% dont have a retirement plan; nearly 40% dont know what an annuity or mutual fund is; and 20% expect to rely purely on Social Security for their retirement needs. More than half dont trust anyones advice.
Collectively, we seem to be throwing the towel. Its not difficult to understand why, to be sure. After a sharp pullback in 2008-09, stocks are only now touching levels they first reached in the late 1990s. So the market has been dead money for nearly 15 years if you bought then and simply held on. A lot of folks who were on track with savings at, say 45, have fallen way behind and now they are 60. This helps explain why so many boomers now plan to work past their normal retirement age of 66 or 67.
Read more: http://business.time.com/2013/03/07/have-americans-given-up-on-saving-for-retirement/#ixzz2Mtw6mmiu