A newsletter article by Kathryn Zdan, EA, and Managing Editor at Spidell’s, states that Boomers are retiring earlier than anticipated, but that there is a top concern about long-term care costs. Her summary is based in a survey released by the Metlife Mature Market Institute providing some interesting statistics related to how the oldest group of Baby Boomers (those born in 1946) is handling retirement.

Retirement age

It was originally projected that this group would work long past the typical retirement age, but already 52% of them are retired — this is five years earlier than this group had previously indicated they were planning on retiring. When the survey was conducted in 2007, only 19% of them had retired. The survey found that 54% of these retirees left the workforce earlier than they intended, and the top two reasons were health (32%) or job loss (25%). Of those who retired later than planned, the top two reasons were needing the salary (30%) and enjoying working (26%).

Standard of living changes

Well over half (62%) of the group surveyed found that once they retired, their standard of living did not change — and this is in spite of 58% of retired respondents reporting lower income in retirement than while working. Almost 20% reported an increase in their standard of living, due to lower expenses and the addition of Social Security benefits and unearned income. For the 20% who reported a lower standard of living, the reasons were unexpected expenses and not enough retirement income.

Retirement savings

Regardless of whether they have retired or not, across the age group more than half of the survey respondents have already achieved or are close to reaching their retirement savings goals. Only 2% haven’t started saving yet, and about one-third are either somewhat behind or significantly behind.

Retirement concerns

The three main concerns cited by the oldest Baby Boomers regarding retirement are:

Long-term care needs
Health care costs in retirement
Having enough money to last through retirement

“The Metlife Report on the Oldest Boomers: Healthy, Retiring Rapidly, and Collecting Social Security” (May 2013) Metlife Mature Met Life Report on Baby Boomers

Article by Kathryn Zdan, EA and Managing Editor for Spidell’s Elder Client Planner