by BLACK ENTERPRISE Editors
One of the many upsides to living in the 21st century is that average life expectancies are higher than ever before. People who make it to retirement age can expect to enjoy many more years of health and happiness than their parents and grandparents.
One of the many upsides to living in the 21st century is that average life expectancies and lifespans are higher than ever before, and so people who make it to retirement age can expect to enjoy many more years of health and happiness than their parents and grandparents.
This creates concerns at a state and national level, as the aging population puts pressure on various systems that were designed and implemented long before current lifespan trends came to pass. It also poses potential problems for individuals, as the question of financial security in retirement becomes more acute when people can reasonably expect to live longer while relying on the pension provisions they have put in place.
So, is there a genuine crisis brewing, or can we expect increasing life expectancies to be manageable with the right planning? The team at Abacus Global Management, Inc. set out to answer this question by letting the data do the talking.
The Growth of Golden Years Living
What’s more pertinent to our discussion is the life expectancy for someone who reaches 65. This is 19.5 years on average, meaning that a person who chooses to end their career at this point will have nearly two decades ahead of them.
The Retirement Savings Conundrum
Interpreting the data on retirement security is comparatively tricky, since there’s a significant gap between those with significant sums squirreled away and those with more modest pots. This makes averages less useful without further scrutiny.
Abacus Global Management
The Growing Gap
So, people are living longer and getting older, and average retirement pots are increasing, albeit modestly. What really matters is the affordability of retirement. Inflation remains an issue, and individuals with fixed post-retirement incomes must consider this when seeking to maintain their quality of life.
The Retirement Shortfall
The Bottom Line
There are variations in lifespan based on age, gender, socioeconomic status, race, and many other factors. These same variables influence average incomes, savings, and other assets. So drawing conclusions about your own circumstances from top-level data is not possible.
What is obvious is that if you’re still working now, you’ll live longer than you would if you’d been born into any earlier generation. As such, preparing for life after work requires more thought and a firmer commitment sooner rather than later.
The retirement gap is real, and the cost of living is only going to increase as time passes. Saving early and investing wisely will stand you in good stead for a future in which the only certainty is that you’ll need a firm financial footing to enjoy retirement, rather than just subsisting on state payouts.
This story was produced by Abacus Global Management and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
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Source: Black Enterprise
