Retirement is like that in the last century. It’s the stuff of Bruce Springsteen’s songs about brave Americans who wake up every morning to do a job they can’t stand, but they do it with beautiful visions of a merciful end.
New York Times Journalist Jessica Grose undoubtedly carries an old-fashioned view of retirement. Consider his latest article titled “The Fantasy of a Comfy Retirement has always been a mystery.” Oh, how disappointing. How false is it?
What is clear from Grose’s article is that there is a happy retirement always it was mud. Really? According to a recent report on Wall Street Journalpeople age 70 and older control “about 39 percent of all household finances.”
Grose might respond that the headline misstated his argument, that Gen X faces a difficult future. It’s amazing to think that back when Gen X was young, different movies (think Slackers, singles, true Bite) portends a slick, shirt-folding future for Gen X, not to mention Douglas Coupland’s (simple-titled Generation X) which indicated that their lives were defined by “low-paying jobs, ridicule and materialism.” Gen X finally grew up and did well, right? Something about authorizing an Internet revolution…
It begs the question: How could Gen X’s finances be so bad if they were doing so well? Grose cites a report from the National Institute for Income Security that shows “the median worker has only $955 saved in defined benefit retirement accounts.” It all sounds very bad, although it seems to be strongly contradicted by the growing economic reality that has defined much of American life for the past 45 years.
Some of the skeptics expressed here about Grose’s report may ask why Gen Xers, who are said to be depressed about their so-called retirement dreams, did not save even a little during the booming growth of the US economy that naturally coincided with rising stock markets and credit markets. It’s a reasonable question, and it’s actually an easy response to the Trumpian, “assassination”-like picture painted by Grose. But here it will not be asked.
Instead, it will only be said that Grose set out to paint a bleak picture of retirement and succeeded by finding horror stories. Which is very bad. No, this is not a call for Grose to balance his narrative more with stories of retirees sitting in the millions. That is shooting fish. The impression given is that Grose is unwilling to accept what may happen, that Americans collectively know more than they do.
He cites a 2024 AARP survey showing that “1 in 5 Americans over age 50 have no retirement savings at all,” but does Grose allow the vast majority to be less intelligent? In other words, Grose didn’t bother to guess that Americans probably save less because they don’t need to. If so, Grose would have guessed why.
Did it occur to Grose that more and more people (including Grose, perhaps) love their work more, and are willing to work longer hours because they love it? And perhaps with the latter in mind, Grose might consider the future effects of AI, which, if the past state of modern science is any indication, will provide more, more fulfilling and rewarding work. Considered differently, a low retirement income may indicate a job with permanent characteristics.
Here’s a thought: Grose is looking at retirement through a lens that ended up working at 20.th a century. Unless today’s job is the same as the 20thth century, Americans would have more savings. And that can be very bad.
#retirement #lot #savings