Retirement

On 9/29/2026 the US Senate passed the Claiming Age Clarity Act that the US House passed in December 2025 and the the legislation is now on the way to the President for his signature to become law.
In a nutshell the law changes the terminology about how the claiming ages are referred to by the Social Security Agency.
H. R. 5284 Section 2 of the pending bill as adopted by the Senate without amendment reads as follows –

This recent article in the WSJ got me thinking.
https://www.wsj.com/personal-finance/inflation-proofed-retirement-cd2a387a?st=cvZSf3&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
I read it and tried to relate to it. I wanted advice on how to invest with this inflation that is causing my nest egg to be worth less. I found the article telling me to stop spending.  I got that under control but what about investing?
so HD readers what are you doing to inflation proof your retirement?

I listened to an interview with a former Social Security deputy commissioner, and one point stuck with me: Social Security isn’t going to vanish, but Congress still needs to deal with its funding problem.
I’m getting close to retirement, so I’d like to know what to plan for. I can run the numbers with a smaller benefit. What I can’t do is guess which changes Congress might make—or whether they’ll wait until the trust fund is nearly depleted before making them.

Today marks the Autumnal Equinox, when the Sun crosses directly over the Earth’s equator, heading south. The equinox marks the official astronomical start of fall in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere. It occurs tonight at 8:05 PM EDT.  Days continue to grow shorter and the sun appears lower in the sky.
I wrote an article about the importance of four important astronomical days – the solstices and equinoxes – in my career as a spacecraft thermal engineer.

This is from a survey of only 240 people from WalletHub August 2026, but still, the results are not optimistic. 
For example, 43% of those surveyed believe it is not realistic for the average American to expect to retire comfortably. “Not realistic?” How do HD readers feel about that?

Pension preference: 7 in 10 people believe a pension is better than a 401(k).  Understandable, but for most workers this is not practical because you need to be a participant in a pension plan (generally one employer) for decades to generate a significant retirement income and the average tenure with one employer is only 4-6 years +-
Americans worry about retirement: More than 1 in 3 Americans are not confident that they will have enough money to retire.

Advice, please: My employer moved our 401(k) program from Vanguard to Empower. The offerings are skimpy: no target date retirement funds, no life strategy funds, no balanced or all-in-one funds.  Instead we can choose from 15 funds, many of them with fees higher than index funds.  When I ask Empower why it tolerates this weak menu, I get variations of, “Tolerate? I didn’t know we even allowed plans this narrow.” And when I invite the employer’s managers to broaden the selection,

I read daily about seniors who can’t pay their bills in retirement, who say it’s unfair for them to pay property taxes for schools, who say they deserve higher SS COLAs etc.
Some people, through no fault of their own, because of uncontrollable misfortune, did not have the ability to save and build retirement income at whatever level they were throughout life. But those folks are far from the majority. 
So what happened that after forty years of working so many seniors seem poorly positioned to live in retirement?

Trusts are said to be a tool for its grantor to control from the grave. The first things I look at every morning when I open HD are Jonathan’s quips above the “Latest Posts”, and the most recent thoughts in the “Get Educated” section. 
I sort of think of “Get Educated” as the legacy that Jonathan has granted to us; his way of continuing to guide and educate. 
One of today’s topics is Monte Carlo analysis,

Young adults entering the job market often focus on the salary or hourly wage first, and that makes sense. Pay matters. But the benefits package can be just as important, and sometimes a slightly lower-paying job with stronger benefits is actually the better deal.
Health insurance, deductibles, retirement matching, vesting rules, paid leave, sick time, disability coverage, tuition assistance, promotion potential, and work-life balance all have real value. A 401(k) match, for example, is part of your pay.

I posed this question to an AI program (because I don’t know how to use a spreadsheet).
“If my income is $3,000 per month, I save 10%, I expect to earn 8% per year on invested money and my income will increase by 2.5% per year (basically inflation). How much will I have in 40 years?”
Here’s the answer.
You’d have about $1.29 million after 40 years, assuming you invest the savings monthly, earn 8% per year compounded monthly,

Like most people, I’ll get to feeling overwhelmed. Too many choices, too much complexity, just too much. Once the overwhelm kicks in, there are two ways forward; take a big deep breath and calmly work through the issue, or simply put the whole thing aside. I would like to think that I do more of the former, but as a human being, sometimes it’s the latter.
And it worries me that when financial advice is broadcast to a wide audience,

In some of my previous posts I have touted the Australian Superannuation program as a possible solution to America’s retirement funds problem. I admit that this was based on limited knowledge. This is Morningstar’s take on if this is the answer to our problem:
https://www.morningstar.com/retirement/what-us-could-learn-australias-retirement-savings-system?utm_source=eloqua&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningDigest&utm_content=None_73036&utm_id=38090
I would be interested in our Aussie HD readers take on this assessment of their system, and whether they agree with the conclusions about their system.

From what I read, many if not the great majority, of HD readers are the exception to much of this dilemma.
The responsibility for retirement income has steadily shifted to individuals and away from employers (unless you work for government), but far too few workers have accepted that responsibility. Longterm thinking does not seem a widespread skill. I find this information a bit depressing. How do we change the situation? 
Frankly I don’t know, but if we don’t make changes- if individuals don’t make changes in their financial behavior and if we don’t do better for those with inadequate means to fend for themselves,

A witty, honest and poignant short film:
Retirement Plan
With a lesson:
“Time is the one asset you can’t compound; spend it while the market is still open.”
 

According to a May 2025 Gallup survey, only 61% of Americans age 65 and older own stocks in any way, including IRAs, 401ks, etc. I found that a bit shocking and a little sad. I’m pretty certain HD readers and writers are not among the 39%. 
If that is an accurate percentage, no wonder many retirees are in poor financial shape, no wonder social media is full of videos with seniors claiming they need and deserve higher social security benefits and higher COLA adjustments.