The Health & Retirement Study

[mickeyd]

New study on how long we should live. Keep saving your pennies folks.

Boomers are beginning to understand that they are more likely to live for a long time in retirement, thus requiring more financing for retirement than in the past. Also, Social Security and Medicare are in a precarious state. So working longer offers a chance to save up more and sustain an income at an older age. And since there are fewer young people in the labor force, employers are actively seeking to keep older workers in many cases, so they won't lose the know-how and productivity.

http://finance.yahoo.com/focus-retir...nt-lifestyle#1

[Alan]

We are certainly planning on living into our 90's. If we don't make it, then money gets handed down.

[REWahoo]

And since there are fewer young people in the labor force, employers are actively seeking to keep older workers in many cases, so they won't lose the know-how and productivity.

I've been hearing this claim for years but haven't seen much evidence of it in the real world. What I do see is older and frequently more highly paid workers are often the primary target when it comes to "rightsizing".

Which should be even greater incentive to FIRE....

[Want2retire]

My financial plan extends into my mid 90's. I plan to revise and re-think it if I live to 85. I have enough slack and discretionary spending in my present financial plan that I could extend it at that point, pretty painlessly. If I live to 85, I will probably extend it to 105.

As I recall, the oldest woman alive right now is about 112 years old or so.

[Midpack]

I am planning on 95, but I sure hope I don't make it anywhere close (from the vantage point of 54)...

[Want2retire]

Originally Posted by REWahoo

I've been hearing this claim for years but haven't seen much evidence of it in the real world. What I do see is older and frequently more highly paid workers are often the primary target when it comes to "rightsizing".

That is so true. The federal government is one of the few organizations that really has to keep older workers.

But even so, I don't think they are especially encouraged to stay. The older scientists I work with usually end up off in a corner doing routine, unglorious tasks on "retirement track", and spend a lot of time socializing and goofing off. They take home relatively high pay due to seniority and years of regular increases, and have plenty of job security, though. There aren't many that stay on past 65, though probably a whole lot more than in private industry.

[Alan]

Originally Posted by REWahoo

I've been hearing this claim for years but haven't seen much evidence of it in the real world. What I do see is older and frequently more highly paid workers are often the primary target when it comes to "rightsizing".

Which should be even greater incentive to FIRE....

This is the case in my profession and industry. (EE in Chemical industry). Although there has been lots of lay-off's with "right-sizing" over the last few years I've never had a sniff of a package. I'm sure if I wanted to I could keep on working for many more years.

[Rich_in_Tampa]

A small consolation is that if you plan for retirement for 35 years, it is usually good for life. That is, the failure rates of 35 year plans don't drop very much if you extend them to 40 or even 45, barring situations where certain pensions or other fixed sources dry up.