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The retirement scam – please don’t call this a rant

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AUTHOR: R Quinn on 10/03/2024

Following is the text of a post that has appeared over and over on social media. 

“ The Retirement Scam

The average lifespan is 76 years.

Middle age isn’t 50 – it’s 38.

They’ve tricked us into working until we’re 67.

By the time we retire, we only have 9 years left in this world.

Why do we only get to enjoy life when we’re old, wrinkly and broken?

Why not enjoy it when we’re young and full of energy? “

Of course life expectancy at age 67 is not nine years, it is 15.63 years for men and 18.23 years women.  

Nobody says you must work to age 67 and nobody is tricking anyone. 

On the other hand “enjoying life” when you’re young has many interpretations. It may mean you enjoy it so much you don’t make it to age 67 or if you do, you are so unprepared you can’t enjoy retired life. 

I worked to 67, I am enjoying retirement – beyond expectations – and nothing I did or didn’t do stopped me from enjoying life when much younger – including raising four children. 

I can’t avoid being old, nor do I want to – its a goal. I resent the wrinkly and broken comment though. I may be eligible for antique plates, but I’m not a raisin yet and last time I checked nothing is broken, at least that can’t be fixed as needed. So what if an occasional nap sneaks up on me. 

Sadly though, many comments on this post when it appears on social media agree with the perspective – but not all. Yeah‼️ 

The real people being scammed are those whose ability to think and plan long-term is limited or non-existent. 

I cannot accept that all but the lowest 15-20% on the income scale are not able to regularly save something. If it is important to you, there is money to be made. You may need a part-time second job, work overtime, give up small pleasures, skip a purchase, but it is possible. 

I earned money from about age eight doing everything from shining  shoes, selling lemonade, selling homemade potholders, collecting and returning deposit bottles, working in a pet shop for $5.00 a week, working in the town library for $0.75 an hour, raking leaves, shoveling snow and more.

Once I had a regular job, I worked overtime during the busy the period every night and Saturdays from January to May each year for several years.

When I became eligible for bonuses late in my career, that money was never used to improve our lifestyle. It was either invested or used for a one time purchase, never a new ongoing obligation. 

There is nothing unique about me – except perhaps the way I think about money and my limited tolerance for excuses. 

We do not have two lives, one working, one retired. It’s all one life and our finances need to view it that way. A decision at age 30 can have implications at age 80. 

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Dan Smith
1 month ago

I often begin conversations about bygone days by saying “in a prior life”, but the truth is we really do have just one life, and it’s going by awful fast. And I’ve always had fun, even when my marriage was a train wreck. I just choose to remember the good stuff; raising the kids, working a hard but fun job, and all the good people that I’ve come to know.
Also yes, choices made when young have a rippling effect. I wrote about how a friendship made when I was 19 set me on a career path. Here’s another example: I was 16 when my buddy and me met 2 girls at a McDonalds one weekend. We ended up dating those girls for a spell. Roger broke up with Diana after a year or so. Mary and I lasted through high school. Diana and I became good friends, and introduced me to the girl who would become my wife and the mother of my daughters. Seven grandkids later I give my friend Diana credit for the life I have today. 

bbbobbins
1 month ago

Not sure what’s wrong with the SM post, unless by its nature it’s got a secondary agenda. You can quibble numbers but average life expectancy is not the same as life expectancy once you’ve already reached 67.

Is it not a call to arms for living life on your own terms? I’ve taken gap years and career breaks/ sabbaticals that my parents generation never did ( beyond maternity leave). And I look at Gen Zers joining the workplace who have an expectation of a portfolio career building experience and jumping between adjacent or entirely different fields in different countries. I’m entirely on board with front loading a bit of retirement, you get to try out what you think you might do and whether too much of a good thing bores or stimulates you.

It’s not of course the willing drone messaging corporates would have us believe but in a world in which redundancies are commonplace I’m not sure it wouldn’t be a good part of everyone’s plan to have a warchest for an adult gap year. Even if you only spend it with the kids before they aren’t too old.

Edit to add as someone closer to the grave than the cradle let’s hope not too many younger folk strike out too independently and stop slaving for the man. But from what I see net of SM there’s plenty of vanity crap being sold or “influenced” and I believe there is still a biological urge to breed so many of the traditional anchors of life will restrain most of the potential free spirits.

Last edited 1 month ago by bbbobbins
mytimetotravel
1 month ago

I don’t spend time on social media (unless you count HumbleDollar and Fodors). I’m sure refraining is good for my blood pressure and my temper – you should try it.

Jonathan Clements
Admin
1 month ago

As I’ve been reminded multiple times over my career, folks regularly confuse life expectancy as of retirement age with life expectancy as of birth. Readers may want to check out this life expectancy calculator from Social Security:

https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/population/longevity.html

The calculator says a 67-year-old male can expect to live another 17.7 years, while a 67-year-old female can expect to live another 20.2 years.

parkslope
1 month ago

Life expectancy is also positively correlated with income, which is another factor to consider. A large scale examination of life expectancy at age 40 (1.4 billion de-identified tax records and SS mortality data) found that
First, higher income was associated with greater longevity throughout the income distribution. The gap in life expectancy between the richest 1% and poorest 1% of individuals was 14.6 years (95% CI, 14.4 to 14.8 years) for men and 10.1 years (95% CI, 9.9 to 10.3 years) for women. Second, inequality in life expectancy increased over time. Between 2001 and 2014, life expectancy increased by 2.34 years for men and 2.91 years for women in the top 5% of the income distribution, but increased by only 0.32 years for men and 0.04 years for women in the bottom 5% (P < .001 for the difference for both sexes).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4866586/

Linda Grady
1 month ago
Reply to  parkslope

In my public health nursing career making home visits to almost entirely the very poor, I used to say “My clients aren’t even on the bottom rung of the socioeconomic ladder – they’re below it.” It was very evident how poverty affected health: grandmothers in their 40’s appeared to be 10-20 years older, often toothless and no dentures (because the ones they had fit poorly and hurt). We know that poor dental health leads to many other health problems but in our current health care system it’s given a very low priority.

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