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For Many, No Age Is Right Age To Hang It Up
To retire or not to retire? That, as Shakespeare might have said, is the question. For most of us, the answer is "Yes." So we work for it, save for it and plan for it. But for many other people, the answer is "No." They have no desire to retire, and instead they look for strategies that will help them avoid retirement. One prominent member of the "No" camp is Bert Ely, president of Ely & Co. of Alexandria. Ely is a 60-year-old consultant and an expert in the field of banking and financial services. If his name sounds familiar, it's because Ely is quoted frequently in newspaper, radio and television stories about banking issues. A man of high energy who loves his work, Ely says he does not want to ever fully retire. "While eventually I might like to trim my present 60-hour workweek to 50 hours or even 40 hours and take a few longer weekends," Ely told me, "continuing to work full time still seems much more attractive, invigorating and fun than the alternatives." Ely's plan to keep on working makes him part of the advance wave of Americans who, experts predict, will work well into their seventies and eighties. Indeed, the federal government already is pushing millions of workers toward later retirement: Social Security's full retirement age will soon begin a slow rise from 65 to 67, so people will need to keep working until their benefits kick in. But now, when workers reach their full retirement age, they can take their Social Security benefits and continue to work without any limit on their earnings. That will prompt many people to stay on the job and enjoy the extra income. There is a nongovernmental reason, too: The two-year bear market has cut deeply into the 401(k) balances of many workers nearing retirement. The decline is expected to encourage those employees to keep working so they can add to their retirement savings. Meanwhile, many baby boomers -- people born between 1946 and 1964 -- expect to work part time or full time after retirement, according to public opinion polls taken over the past several years. A survey conducted for the brokerage firm UBS PaineWebber reported that 85 percent of boomers expect to work after retirement. An AARP survey taken by Roper Starch Worldwide said 80 percent of boomers plan to do so. A key reason is that the nation's 77 million baby boomers will go into retirement with a very different attitude about work than did their parents, said J. Walker Smith, president of Yankelovich Inc., a national consumer-marketing consulting firm. Smith spoke at a recent meeting of the Investment Company Institute in Washington. The parents of boomers, Smith said, thought of retirement as "a time at which you get disconnected from the workplace." Boomers, on the other hand, will want to stay closely connected to the workplace, Smith predicted. For one thing, they enjoy better health than their parents. In fact, Smith said, "a sense of youthfulness is the defining characteristic of baby boomers." Also, they generally enjoy work. "The whole notion of 'meaningful work' was really a baby-boomer concept," he said. And then, the workplace continues to be "a core part of the self-identity of baby boomers." As a result, Smith added, boomers will want to remain "more actively involved . . . still the center of attention . . . still on the quest for the next new adventure . . . still trying to break the rules." And work, he said, "is a large part of that." While most boomers say they will work after they retire, Ely is more adamant. He does not want to retire at all, and he is thinking hard about strategies that will help him to avoid retirement. This will not be an easy task, he noted. As one grows older, Ely acknowledged, it can get harder to stay at the top of one's professional game. And if health problems develop, it can become even more difficult to keep up a fast-paced career. So Ely, in his analytical way, has pinpointed some of the challenges that he and other people face if they want to continue working beyond the normal retirement age of 65. He did so by preparing a list of tough questions about work and retirement, which he shared with me during a recent interview. Ely admits he doesn't know all the answers to his questions. Even so, I found that the questions by themselves spotlighted many key issues that people will face if they want to keep working into later life. Here are some of the questions that Ely suggests people ask -- and try to answer -- if they want to avoid retirement: Why should I continue to work past a normal retirement age? Are there positive reasons, such as: "It's fun. It's challenging. I need the income"? Or are there negative reasons, such as "I want to get out of the house. I'm bored. I don't know what else to do"? What type of work makes the most sense for me after 65? Do I stay on someone's payroll or do I become self-employed? How can I best capitalize on my work experience? How much should I try to work? How flexible should I try to make my schedule? To what extent and at what pace do I eventually want to slow down without stopping work altogether? Can I relocate and still work? How do I stay relevant in my field? How do I maintain a positive, creative and innovative attitude toward work? What is the best way to maintain professional contacts and to interact positively with much younger peers while maintaining their respect? How do I stay in the loop? How do I avoid coming across as an old fogy who is trying to hang on when he should hang it up? How do I stay abreast of the relevant technology and adapt to continuing technological change? When should I start drawing on Social Security and other sources of retirement income? What insurance should I maintain after 65? What is the best way to finance my health care? What type of health insurance makes the most sense for someone working after 65? How should one try to maintain work commitments while dealing with health issues and physical disabilities? How will I know when to finally retire for good? How will I know when I am losing it mentally? Who should tell me that I should stop working if I can't figure that out myself? Out of all of these issues, Ely seems most concerned about the task of remaining professionally relevant. To do that, he said, it is important for him to stay in touch not only with financial service issues but also with people in the industry. "I'm a great believer in schmoozing, staying in the loop, knowing who the players are, being current on the gossip," Ely says. Being relevant, he says, has little to do with age but a lot to do with "not thinking old." He adds: "I suspect that there are people out there at the age of 85 who are more relevant, more in the loop on what's going on, than some people age 50." Ely, who holds an MBA from Harvard University, has run his own business for 30 years. A specialist in banking and money-policy issues, he often speaks at bank industry meetings, testifies at congressional hearings and appears as an expert witness in bank-related court cases. "I really get a kick out of wrestling with difficult policy issues," Ely says. "To me, it's a fun thing to do." Ely's desire to remain physically and intellectually active for many years is easy for this writer to understand. I was 69 years of age when I retired from my job as a financial writer at The Washington Post. Afterward, I began writing the Retirement Journal column. That assignment had the benefit of keeping me "in the loop," as Ely would say. Staying in the loop probably has cost me some time on the golf course. But it has also has kept me in touch with people who deal with issues that affect the health and welfare of millions of retirees. Like Ely, I like being in touch. So, I wish Bert Ely success in his non-retirement. And I hope he can stay in the loop as long as he wants. FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Action on Aging distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
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