|
|
|
|
||
|
||
|
|
||
| SEARCH | SUBSCRIBE | ||
|
 |
Workers
65 and up put retirement plans on hold By
David McNaughton
The current stock market rally
apparently isn't enough to convince people it's safe to retire. Even with the stock market
surging in recent months -- the Dow industrials are up about 21 percent
since early March -- the number of workers 65 and older continues to rise. Dick Rhodes is one of them.
Last year's market slump scared the Atlantan into canceling plans to
retire in September. Instead of taking it easy, he
held onto his job as purchasing manager at Capital City Country Club. Soon to be 67, Rhodes would
like to retire, but the damage the market did to his investments makes him
worry about paying for things like the prescription drugs he needs. And he
wants to continue traveling, which costs money. "It still scares me,
wondering how long my money will last," Rhodes said, even though he
has a cushion in the form of an inheritance. His fears are common among
would-be retirees, who, like other investors, have experienced three years
of painful market losses that have been difficult to overcome. "They haven't had enough
time to recover what they lost," said Sara Rix, senior policy adviser
at AARP, a national organization for Americans 50 and over. In fact, the Dow is still below
where it was this time last year, as is the Standard & Poor's 500,
while the Nasdaq is up about 10 percent. And all the indexes are far below
the levels they reached in early 2000, before the stock market bubble
burst. Against that market backdrop
come numbers that show a surging population of older workers. In the heady days of March
2000, about 17.4 million Americans 65 or older were working, according to
the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This March, the number was up to 18.5
million -- a 6.3 percent increase -- and it's still growing. The portion of the work force
that's old enough to retire rose to 13.6 percent in May, the highest in 28
years. That translates into 18.7 million people. Some people don't want to
retire, said Rix of Washington-based AARP, which may explain part of the
increase in the number of older Americans at work. The labor force was
getting grayer even before the market started downhill, she noted. Still, the key reason for
postponing retirement is money, Rix said. Or the uncertainty of finding
work should the need arise. "It's much easier to hang
onto a job you have than to get one after you leave the labor force,"
she said. There's also usually a lag
between a turn in the market and when people change their minds about
work, Rix noted. "After March 2000, it took awhile for people to put
their retirement plans on hold." Wayne Miller of Alpharetta
didn't put the brakes on until last summer, when he moved his retirement
age target to 60 from 58. Miller, who's almost 55, is
more confident about the stock market now than he was a year ago. But he
hasn't altered his timetable for leaving Prudential Financial. What he worries about is
another shock to the stock market. "There's going to be another
terrorist event," he said. There's other news on the way
-- most likely good news -- that could influence the thinking of older,
working Americans. It will come in the form of investment account
statements due after June 30, said Ric Edelman, a financial adviser and
author in Fairfax, Va. Those statements, he said, "will be the first clue for a lot of consumers that the world is not as bad as it was." Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
