Where a generation of Americans is expected to work until they die:
At age 58 and less than a decade away from retirement, Nancie Eichengreen, found herself having to start over from scratch.It was 2012 and she had been laid off for the second time in 10 years from her job as a legal secretary. She spent a few years collecting unemployment benefits and dipping into her meager 401(k) savings to fill in the gaps.
“It’s kind of scary because I don’t envision a retirement for myself,” Eichengreen told Yahoo Finance. “I’m just going to have to keep working.”
Two years ago, she decided to start over completely, going back to school for a Masters degree in social work at Yeshiva University in New York. Today, Eichengreen now 60, is living off of student loans and says it’s unlikely that she’ll be able to pay off her $200,000 student debt, which includes what she borrowed for her first Masters studies in broadcast management.
“I don’t think social workers make much money so I’ll probably be dead before I pay that off,” she said.
Her situation is unfortunate but not unique. Thirty-four percent of workers have nothing set aside for retirement, according to the U.S. Social Security Administration. A study by the National Institute on Retirement Security found 40 percent of workers 55-65 years old do not own assets in a retirement account.
A MyRA account isn't going to solve this person's problems, nor is any other private investment scheme. There are tens of millions of people in this country who don't earn enough money to invest, and they deserve a decent and dignified retirement, too. But in most places, they won't be able to have one on the $15,000 a year that comprises the average Social Security benefit. So whether we double Social Security disbursements, raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour, enact a guaranteed annual income of, say, $30K a year, and tax the wealthy to pay for it, our policymakers need to realize that some radical redistribution of income is necessary to stave off mass poverty and social unrest, and the longer they dawdle, the more radical the redistribution will need to be.
---Baron V
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