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I’m very confused. I think this article is a good fit for HD, but I’m really not sure if anything I write is suitable anymore. Hopefully, I’m not offending anyone posting this piece to the forum.
I bumped into a guy I played with as a kid. He’s six foot six and built like a linebacker, but he looks old and worn out now—forty years in a hot tarmac crew hasn’t been kind. He asked me what I was doing these days. I never told him I was retired. I vaguely talked about juggling lots of commitments and left it at that. I wasn’t lying. I have sporting commitments, and I juggle social and travel schedules with more affluent people.
I’m sometimes uncomfortable telling certain people I’m retired. My social circle is very diverse from a socio-economic point of view—that’s a combination of randomness and a callback to my family history, growing up in a deprived public housing scheme. The ties that bind are still there; I’m friends with some pretty dodgy but interesting characters.
These characters don’t mix with my more affluent friends, and I don’t make any effort to bring the different circles together. I genuinely think it would be the equivalent of throwing water on a cooking oil fire—an incendiary and explosive combination. It wouldn’t end well. A dinner party or restaurant gathering would be an alien concept. A lot of pints, pool, and a few games of darts along with very, very strongly worded banter is the perfect night, preferably without your wife. It might sound stereotypical, but it’s reality. I still join the craic and show my face a few times a year. It’s very different but refreshing.
This social disconnect between worlds is very real and, to my mind, very concerning for society as a whole. Straddling this divide at such a personal level has rammed home the ever-widening financial gap that, although always there, has definitely been accelerating over the last five years or so. My friend Nigel is a 62-year-old self-employed builder. Things are tight. The fuel injectors on his van packed in, and he’s scrambling to get another truck on the road. No van, no work, no money. That’s the grim reality.
The discomfort around saying I’m retired isn’t about modesty—it’s about the sheer unfairness of it. I know too many people, good people, who’ve worked themselves into the ground and still can’t see a way out. They’re not lazy or feckless; they’re just trapped in a system that’s rigged against them from the start. Low wages, insecure work, rent that eats half their income before they’ve bought a jug of milk. Retirement isn’t even on their radar as a realistic prospect—it’s a fantasy for other people, the ones who got lucky or started with advantages they never had.
What really gets me is watching mates from back home still grafting in their sixties, bodies breaking down, knowing they’ll probably work until they physically can’t anymore. There’s no pot of gold waiting, no pension worth mentioning, just the grim arithmetic of benefits that don’t cover the bills. Meanwhile, I’m out—done, finished, free to do what I like. The randomness of it seems wrong. We started from similar places, same schemes, same schools, but a few breaks here, a different choice there, and our trajectories diverged completely. They’re still in the struggle; I’m not. It doesn’t feel like something I earned through superior virtue. Not everyone can own the means of production.
And here’s what really worries me: this isn’t getting better, it’s getting worse. The gap between those who can retire with dignity and those who’ll work until they drop has widened dramatically in the last few years. Pensions have been gutted, housing costs have exploded, and the precarious nature of work means people can’t build anything stable anymore. When I’m around people still stuck in that grind, saying “I’m retired” feels less like sharing news and more like rubbing salt in a wound. I don’t know how to fix it. I’ve got a unique vantage point. I think the least I can do is bear witness to the inequality before I slink back to my middle-class retirement lifestyle. It’s not much, but it’s all I have. The simple fact is: sometimes hard work and superior effort is met only with superior exhaustion.
This is such a thoughtful and interesting piece, Mark. You have a very unique perspective because of your origins and different social circles. I think it’s very healthy and sounds humbling in its own ways. Your empathy is admirable.
It made me think about how I mostly live in a bubble in my Northern California college town where people I interact with live comfortably and aren’t doing physical work in their 60s. But then I started thinking about people whose paths cross mine regularly—the Vietnamese immigrant couple who own the nail salon I go to, my housecleaner from Mexico, my hairstylist who’s 71 and single and still needs to support herself, the couple in our Bible study who live in subsidized housing with three of their four adult children and a grandchild, and members of my own extended family who are in more precarious circumstances than we are—and I realize how relatively easy we have it and it makes me feel appreciative and makes me want to be generous with my resources and myself.
Yours is the type of response I hoped the article would elicit: stepping back and appreciating the hardship of others. The fact you’re personally aware of so many instances of struggle and can bear witness highlights how common it is.
Never feel guilty because you’re successful. I know a lot of well educated people who grew up in good homes with good jobs who don’t have any money; mainly because they spent it all!! I also know a lot of poor people. They don’t know how to make money, save it or invest it; and they don’t care. Read the book “The Millionaire Next Door” and do what the book suggests.
Mike, I don’t think it’s a sense of guilt, more a need to show empathy and respect for those who have fought the good fight and, for various reasons, haven’t achieved material success through no fault of their own.
That‘s a great article, and perspective. The gap between the haves and the have nots has certainly widened.
I think we can reconcile it better when individuals have made poor choices. But when people have worked diligently yet still ended up in a financial pickle it’s difficult to see.
I try to count my abundant blessings every day.
Fred, I feel that’s a very principled approach and one we should all embrace.
Thank you Mark!
A great read Mark and very appropriate for this site. I would hope when I’m retired I will always remember the role luck, good health and winning the ovarian lottery had in my good fortune. As you mentioned, “the randomness of it all seems wrong.”
Juan, I hope my agency in life would have overcome different roadblocks along the way, but it would certainly not be a foregone conclusion; luck certainly plays a role.
Great post. I find that volunteering for Habitat for Humanity, doing home repairs, with a group of retired guys helps keep the stark economic divide right in front of me while at the same time doing a little to help the situation.
I recently visited my local Habitat for Humanity ReStore for the first time while searching for a piece of kitchen worktop for a project. I was amazed, it’s truly an Aladdin’s cave of materials. What a wonderful organization!
I can’t imagine a more appropriate article for this venue, Mark.
Mark, I understand that you view this retirement situation in economic perspective. At my 50th high school reunion a few months ago, people who came to the event viewed our classmates not in economic terms but alive or dead—all with terms of endearment, regardless of their station in life. That connection transcended the divide.
Happy people look for ways to re/connect with other people by turning our back to events or situations that divide us.
Quan, I understand the bigger picture – a life lived under any circumstances is a wonderful and precious thing. We only have to read the testimony of survivors of genocide to get an imperfect feel for the human drive to survive. We mourn those we know whose journey is cut short.
Still, the impulse not to highlight my good fortune to those still struggling economically persists within me.
Thanks Mark, another very interesting article.
I have no answers. This piece has rattled around in my head for several days, and the best I can do is let my muddled thoughts spill out.
This feels like a hard issue to grapple with. To have a successful retirement, one probably needs a mix of hard work, discipline and luck. The latter is obviously outside our control.
And if luck has smiled upon you, it can be difficult to know how to feel. Being grateful is probably helpful and healthy. But it can easily turn to guilt, which isn’t probably particularly good for anyone.
Perhaps just finding some empathy for others, an understanding that they may have battled hard but things just didn’t work out, is at least some way forward.
And maintaining a sense of humility, knowing that with one medical event or car crash or whatever else that everything could be very different.
My small contribution to balancing the scales is to mentor young people, showing them how to make better decisions.
I cannot control their outcome but I can point them in the right direction.
Our good fortune is definitely tied to the dice of random chance; the universe looks on and cares not. We can only plan and hope while fate tries to decide. Our agency riles against and pushes for determination.
Thanks so much for this article Mark. Your compassion and humility shine through.
Thanks Mark. I have a similar background. I grew up in a small Appalachia blue collar town in the 50s. Through God’s grace I have been far more successful than I ever dreamed. Success is a relative term, and compared to many on HD, I would not be considered all that successful. But coming from where I started, it was successful for me, and I know many people in my hometown who never got the opportunities that I did.
Like you, I avoid talking about my status or success, especially with people in different economic backgrounds.
I tend to think that if we can cover our basic needs, food, clothing, shelter, with a bit left over for leisure and giving to others, that’s a good measure of success.
It’s natural at your age unless you’re the type of person who wants to brag not to disclose retirement status with those not similarly fortunate.
And it’s simply being a decent human to recognise that those not in a similar position are not all lazy, feckless, irresponsible etc. At the same time there will be those who have made their own “bad luck” for whom we do not need to be excessively sympathetic but generally I find we’ve probably filtered lots of those people out of our lives over time.
I’m gifting a Wall Street Journal opinion piece on income inequality and the current problems with the “American dream”.
So much comes down to luck, especially the initial luck of where you’re born and who your parents are. Even Mark’s hard-working friends aren’t doing so badly by the standards of some other parts of the world.
“So much comes down to luck” … indeed I have always wondered how the “the harder I work the luckier I get” crowd (and there are a few on here) comes from. When I engage one of these folks I frequently remind them that every year a quarter of a million people are literally struck by lightning
250,000, wow, that’s hard to believe! Although I do believe, because I just checked.
Thanks for the link to this article. There are far too few articles about financial inequality that make a concerted effort to understand the factors that affect economic mobility.
The following excerpt is a good summary of the article.
From Memphis, Tenn., Tulsa, Okla., and New Orleans—cities with higher-than-average poverty rates—we recruited 1,000 adults who self-identified as having grown up poor. By the time we met them in their 40s, some had exited poverty, but most hadn’t.
Each took part in a three-hour interview about childhood health, parental income, home environment, lifetime traumas, neighborhood safety, psychological skills, beliefs and current income. The goal was to understand which childhood experiences were most correlated with mobility.
We found that human capital was the strongest predictor of mobility. The second most important predictor was noncognitive skills—traits like resilience, self-esteem and conscientiousness. Other factors also mattered: the number of trusted adults in one’s childhood, early encounters with police, mental health and adverse experiences.
Despite the challenges I faced growing up, I’m grateful for the teachers, mentors and moments that produced whatever human capital I have—and for a grandmother who embodied grit and resilience.
By reforming education, having adults children can count on and helping them build strong character traits, we can begin to restore the American dream I’ve always believed in—one in which birth is a fact, not a fate.
Kathy, thanks for gifting this. Thought provoking. Then, I started in on the comments – some of them, not so nice.
For some reason, even though I have a subscription to the WSJ, I can’t see comments. Maybe because I have an ad blocker.
I recently encountered this for WSJ articles and for myself. I also have an ad blocker on Edge. I tried clearing cache-didnt work. I then swtiched browsers to Chrome after downloading it and not syncing-that worked.
I don’t know if this applies to everyone but I can only see the comments on my computer–they don’t show up on my phone or ipad.
I am able to see the WSJ comments on both my computer and iPhone, and I don’t have a subscription to the WSJ.
Thanks for the gift article, a thought-provoking and interesting read.
Mark,
Excellent post! And it is definitely a 100% GREAT fit for HD.
Please keep contributing.
Mark – as far as I’m concerned, your posts are spot-on and absolutely suitable for Humble Dollar.
This post is relevant to me because I don’t share a background like yours, and I need to read different viewpoints. In my social circle, I don’t need to shy away from describing myself as retired. I’m not sure how I’d cope if I needed to do so – so your perspective is valuable to me. Please keep posting.
This is sort of difficult to discuss without sounding arrogant. Somebody has to be the boss, and somebody has to be the subordinate. Both jobs have to be filled. I know more of the latter, and many of those have done just fine, including reaching the goal of retiring young. They remained healthy and made responsible choices with whatever they had to work with. Others are victims of self-inflicted wounds or lousy luck.
My biography could be titled the Tale of Two Dans. Self-inflicted wounds led to my working until 70, and that’s okay, I’ve had lots of fun on my trip.
I understand your point, and it’s valid for some people. But I think you’re painting with too broad a brush. The economic divide is real, and hard work alone often isn’t enough to escape it. When we attribute these struggles solely to poor individual choices, we overlook the systemic issues around wealth distribution in society. This lets the broader economic structure off the hook.
my brother was in upstate NY on an exchange scholarship in 1976. His host family father was a successful engineer. Two doors down on the same street, lived the family of the guy who drove the garbage collection truck. Both families were middle class..
What happened ?
In Australia where my brother now lives, minimum wage is indexed to age. So after 21 minimum wage is $25/hr for salaried work with benefits, $31/hr for casual work.
I don’t see why Australia can do it and we can’t.
No doubt the chasm between rich and poor has widened. I don’t think my opinions on that stay within HD parameters.
Understandable, touchy subject.
Good comment, Dan. Thinking more about Mark’s post, life happens and we do have to adjust. My brother, who is 18 mos younger than me, is not able to retire yet. He and his wife had to raise their grandchildren b/c of drug addiction. They have a few more years. I admire my brother and his wife for stepping in when they were needed. Chris
I do agree, Chris. Whenever I had a client, claiming a grandchild as a dependent, there was always a similar story.
That’s part of the “lousy luck” I mentioned. Hats off to your brother.
I can’t relate to the UK, but here barely 50% of workers ever had a pension, except for government workers where 80% or more still have pensions, a key part of their compensation.
No doubt there are people who work hard and never seem to get ahead. I only have to look at my sister and her family to see that reality.
But as I look at people I am close to or know of in detail, there often seems to be an element of self-harm. Poor decisions about a job or education, harmful spending habits, debt, etc.
I remember years ago I guy I worked with harangued me about my job as a clerk as he was. He was going to leave and set the world on fire and make more money. He did leave and pretty much laughed in his way out noting his new hourly rate was more than mine.
Thereafter he called periodically saying how well he was doing and urging me to leave as well. Finally, asked for more details. Turned out his money came from working the midnight shift and OT in an elevator factory. I suspect the years of doing that took its toll.
In the mean time, dull, anti risk taker me ended up a Vice President in a S&P 500 company. I suppose it could have turned out differently for me, it sure took a long time to reach my goal, but I avoided doing harm to myself and my family.
Sometimes not doings things is as valuable as doing something.
Mark, this was a heartfelt post, and an important one IMO. I feel it too. On Sunday, I went to get a Christmas present for our son that was kind of expensive. The person who helped me was older, similar in age. I felt a little uncomfortable, thinking how was it that I was able to be retired and had the $$ for the gift? I imagined about the store employee having to work and what I bought would cost them more than a day’s wages. Maybe my imagination was wrong and they were just trying to get out of the house and didn’t really need to work? We never really know another person’s story. In any way, I was grateful for the help and told the employee I was. Chris