Every day, 10,000 baby boomers in the U.S. retire. What awaits them is not always pleasant. The Great Recession, a high cost of living and stagnant wages have left this generation completely unprepared for retirement. A 65-year-old couple would need over $280,000 in savings today to have a 90 percent chance of paying for their medical expenses alone during retirement. Yet 30 percent of workers have less than $1,000 and 60 percent have less than $25,000 in savings.
Many baby boomers plan to rely on Social Security for their living expenses, when on average a full Social Security check covers only a portion of a meager lifestyle. This is before any reductions in benefits that may take place in coming decades due to the massive growth of Social Security recipients and the increase in average lifespans.
Financial advisers and asset managers are playing an active role in convincing consumers to think differently about retirement, but ultimately the decision for most people is to choose between what I need today and what I’ll need in 20 years, and the present usually wins.
About Mike Periu
Mike is a seasoned executive with experience in small business finance and management. He is the founder of Proximo, LLC a leading provider of corporate, consumer and small business education and training services with an emphasis on finance and technology.
Mike Periu is also a leading national voice for individual empowerment through financial education and entrepreneurship. He has been interviewed over 500 times in national and international media, including NBC, Univision, CNN en español, Telemundo, HITN, TVE, RTE, SBS, MegaTV and others.
Mike writes regularly for American Express OpenForum, Yahoo! Finanzas and is a Huffington Post contributor.
Mike has degrees in Finance and International Business from Georgetown University. He is on the Board of Directors of the Council for Economic Education and was a Fellow at the Kauffman Foundation’s Labs for Enterprise Creation.
