Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Money & Business

Planning to Retire by Emily Brandon

Survey: Americans Changing Their Retirement Plans Because of the Economy

October 08, 2008 11:49 AM ET | Emily Brandon | Permanent Link | Print

Americans are changing their retirement plans because of recent changes in the economy. A new AARP survey of workers age 45 and up found that if the economy does not improve significantly, most will probably spend less in retirement (69 percent) and delay retirement and work longer (65 percent). Fewer Americans (37 percent) said they will save more for retirement.

Saving more is considered out of the question for many families who are already strapped for cash. The telephone survey of 1,628 workers in September by AARP and International Communications Research showed that many older Americans have found it more difficult to pay for necessities like food, gas, and medicine (56 percent), helped a family member pay bills (47 percent), and found it hard to pay for utilities like heating, cooling, and phone services (45 percent) in the past year. To cope with rising costs, some workers have increased the number of hours they work (20 percent) and stopped contributing to their retirement accounts (20 percent).

Tell us: Have you changed your retirement plans?

Tags: economy | retirement | savings

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Reader Comments

Those were the lucky ones

The one's that had jobs and jobs that would allow them to work the extra 20%.

Recency

It's nice to see human behavior really never changes. When stocks go through bull markets, everybody thinks they will make a 15% annual return forever and plan their retirements based upon that fat return. During bear markets, people tell surveyors they will never retire, eat cat food and live in shotgun shacks like their Depression-era relatives did. I belive the word for this is "recency" in which people think how it has been for the past few months or year is how it will always be. Sir John Templeton, the knighted outstanding mutual fund manager, recently deceased, said the four most dangerous words in investing is "it's different this time." The smartest guy in the room right now is Warren Buffet. He's buying! And so am I.........

Reply

Exactly right.Now the economy rate was high which makes us to avoid from all those activities.Is there any alternative way where we can get good profit in future.

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Reporter Emily Brandon tells you how to get ready financially for retirement and to make your golden years the best they can be. You can E-mail Emily your retirement concerns at retire@usnews.com.

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