A business group of top executives on Wednesday proposed reforms to Social Security and Medicare that would raise the enrollment age for both programs to 70 but not raise Social Security taxes paid by upper-income Americans. The Business Roundtable, which represents more than 200 chief executives from some of the largest U.S. corporations, also urged … Continue reading
The number of workers who are 75 and older has skyrocketed by 76.7% in the past two decades, according to research by the AARP Public Policy Institute. “We are living longer, healthier lives,” says Kerry Hannon, author of Great Jobs for Everyone 50+. “And the types of work that people do is not as labor … Continue reading
Private industry employers now spend more per employee hour worked for defined contribution retirement plans (retirement plans that specify the level of employer contributions and place those contributions into individual employee accounts) than for defined benefit retirement plans (plans that provide employees with guaranteed retirement benefits that are based on a benefit formula). March 2012 … Continue reading
For nearly all of the 20th century, employment of older workers decreased as increasing numbers retired. But since the mid-1990s, this trend has reversed. Employment among men at least 65 years of age, for example, has increased. The Great Recession of recent years has masked this long-term trend and the reasons for it and has … Continue reading
Mickie Ashman has what she regards as the ideal arrangement at work as she nears retirement. The 66-year-old Calgary human-resources co-ordinator has the security of a permanent job at AltaGas Ltd., an energy infrastructure firm, but she has been able to reduce her work hours from full-time to a more comfortable three days a week. … Continue reading
In 2012, the number of Fortune 100 companies offering new salaried employees only a defined contribution (DC) plan rose, as it has for many years. Today, less than a third of these companies offer any DB plan to newly hired salaried workers, and only 11 still offer a traditional DB plan to new hires. Large … Continue reading
Thirty-five per cent believe they will work past retirement age, but this could have a negative impact on employers. Workers are planning to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the abolition of the default retirement age, according to new research by insurer Canada Life Group. Over a third of employees think they will work … Continue reading
The release of the Federal Reserve’s 2010 Survey of Consumer Finances is a great opportunity to eeassess Americans’ retirement preparedness as measured by the National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI) write Alicia H. Munnell, Anthony Webb, and Francesca Golub-Sass in The National Retirement Risk Index: An Update. (Choosen excerpts by JMM to follow) NRRI shows the share … Continue reading
Between December 2007 and May 2010, the employment rate dropped by 6 percent for men ages 25-54, but less than 1 percent for workers age 55 and older. The pattern for women was equally dramatic: the employment rate dropped by 3 percent for younger women and actually increased by almost 1 percent for older women … Continue reading
Workers who switch jobs several times could lose up to a quarter of their potential pension funds under proposed reforms, critics have warned. The new system of automatic enrolment into pensions means that an increasing number of workers will have savings for their retirement. However, with the average employee changing jobs 11 times during their … Continue reading
The federal government’s long-awaited retirement wave is here, and it’s smacking headlong into the biggest hiring slowdown in a decade. And it’s not just retirements. Overall attrition shot up in 2011, which caused the government’s total workforce to drop by its greatest amount since the height of the government downsizing in 1999. With no end … Continue reading
What if every U.S. worker got an automatic 10 percent pay raise at age 55? According to a new University of Michigan study, most people would work quite a bit longer before they retired, to enjoy the extra income. By eliminating social security payroll taxes starting when workers are 55-years-old, the study shows that people’s … Continue reading
The thought of retiring after more than four decades made Hirofumi Mishima anxious. Instead of looking forward to ending his three-hour daily commute, Mishima wanted to work, even if it meant another hour on the train. “Keeping a regular job is the most stimulating thing for me,” said Mishima, 69, who spent six months trawling … Continue reading
When the Treasury published its first Intergenerational Report (IGR) in May 2002, it alerted governments to the looming problem of an ageing population. A smaller proportion of the population would be working to support a growing proportion in retirement and relying on government services, notably health care, and income support. It was a fiscal disaster … Continue reading
About 74 percent of Americans say they plan to work past age 65, according to a May study by economists Jay Bryson and Sarah Watt of Wells Fargo Securities LLC in Charlotte, North Carolina. Thirty-nine percent said they need to earn to make ends meet or maintain their lifestyle, and 35 percent wanted to stay … Continue reading