The dream of retiring after 60 is slowly dying among Americans, with one in four workers aged 50 and above who haven’t yet left the workforce believing they’ll never retire, according to a recent survey.
The main issue emerging from the latest American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Financial Security Trend Survey conducted by the nonprofit, nonpartisan organization in January 2024 is that older Americans are worried about their finances and can’t save enough money for retirement. About one in four respondents to the survey have no retirement savings due to everyday expenses and high housing costs, and 37 percent are worried about having enough money to afford basic living costs.
Despite inflation easing, the higher cost of living, the unaffordability of the housing market and the struggles faced by older Americans are likely to be crucial issues in the months leading up to the November election.
The AARP’s survey was based on interviews with over 8,000 people made in coordination with the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. It found that the number of Americans aged 50 and older who didn’t think they’d ever retire was more or less unchanged compared to January 2022 and July 2022, when it was 23 percent and 24 percent, respectively. The study is conducted twice a year.
The graying American workforce—whose median age has climbed from 40 in 2002 to 41.8 in 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics—has embraced a growing number of older workers in the past few years. According to a recent Pew Research Center report, about one in five Americans aged 65 and older were still employed in 2023—nearly twice as many as 35 years ago.
Read more at Newsweek.com
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