How Can These Both Be True Here?

[Midpack]

Essentially a reversal in 8 years? SIRE vs FIRE current, the other from 2010...

 

[RunningBum]

What I see is the pension and annuities dropped from 41.5% to 36%. All those other categories in the old poll seem to wrap up into FIRE in the new poll.

Even if it's bigger, pensions are a thing of the past for the most part. Older people with pensions fall out of this site, and are replaced by younger people without pensions.

There's also the fact that these kind of polls are not very scientific, nor statistically accurate. IMO they should only be used for entertainment value, or at least with a lot of grains of salt.

 

[Spock]

why not?
the questions aren't the same between the 2 polls
and different people answered.

 

[omni550]

Some possibilities:

• Perhaps due to portfolio growth in 8 years, from the depths of the great recession to now?
• Perhaps a different slate of forum members... some have moved on and new ones added?
• Perhaps some interpretation/ambiguity in how the polls were structured, as the polls were not identical?
• ...

omni

 

[Fedup]

Pre-ACA perhaps.

 

[Red Badger]

What RB said. Count of pensions decreasing. While we're blessed with a couple of pensions, my mega-corp ended pensions in 2012 with a final sunsetting in 2022.
So, a swing from SIRE to FIRE makes sense (and it's all a bit anecdotal as well).

 

[Midpack]

What I see is the pension and annuities dropped from 41.5% to 36%. All those other categories in the old poll seem to wrap up into FIRE in the new poll.

Except you have to account for Soc Sec in the 2010 result which would at least be significant for most. To me it’s reasonable to assume the 2010 poll is a SIRE majority while the 2018 is a FIRE majority. The decline of pensions began long before 2010, my MegaCorp killed them in 1994 and we weren’t among the first private sector by any means. However, someone’s observation of an 8 year bull market is probably a factor. So I should post another SIRE vs FIRE poll after the next big correction and results will reverse again (joke)...

There's also the fact that these kind of polls are not very scientific, nor statistically accurate. IMO they should only be used for entertainment value, or at least with a lot of grains of salt.

Sad, but probably true.

 

[happy2bretired]

Wasn't 1987 that Federal employees could choose between the old CSRS and FERS...many ex-Feds here I think. We are becoming invisible and obsolete and probably falling BEHIND.

 

[TwoByFour]

why not?
the questions aren't the same between the 2 polls
and different people answered.

Yes, I agree. The two polls are asking different things. I don't even know how I would answer the 2nd as none of the answers are correct for me.

 

[unclemick]

Both. Over 25 years of ER shifted from SIRE to FIRE. At age 75 index funds aka da portfolio is 60% ballpark and climbing.

Mr Market, temp work, inheritance(small), marriage and life provided some dipsy doodles over the years. It wasn't a smooth line.

heh heh heh -

 

[ERD50]

Originally Posted by Running Bum
There's also the fact that these kind of polls are not very scientific, nor statistically accurate. IMO they should only be used for entertainment value, or at least with a lot of grains of salt.

Sad, but probably true.

It is true. A self-selected poll just isn't scientific, nor statistically accurate.

Why is that sad? If you want meaningful information, you need to go about it in meaningful ways. It just is.

-ERD50

 

[6miths]

What I see is the pension and annuities dropped from 41.5% to 36%. All those other categories in the old poll seem to wrap up into FIRE in the new poll.

There's also the fact that these kind of polls are not very scientific, nor statistically accurate. IMO they should only be used for entertainment value, or at least with a lot of grains of salt.

Firstly, I would agree with others that it would be hard to reach any conclusions when one isn't asking the same questions. Any good pollster knows that getting the results you want is largely dependent on how you ask the questions. Lots of work trialing questions which look pretty much the same but give surprisingly different results. Even as simple as negative or positive framing.

Secondly, if you do lump the responses of the multi-question poll as RunningBum has suggested then the difference between the two polls is not statistically significant. Not even close.

 

[marko]

Eight years ago we were crawling out of the Great Recession. Maybe a lot of people were "retiring differently", that is, under circumstances different from now? Maybe more folks were leaving work involuntarily then than now; more separation packages etc?

My point is that eight years ago there was an entirely different 'retirement' profile than now.

 

[Dean56]

My point is that eight years ago there was an entirely different 'retirement' profile than now.

Marko, I agree 100%. Things have gotten a lot better over the past 8 years.


-Dean

 

[RunningBum]

The decline of pensions began long before 2010, my MegaCorp killed them in 1994 and we weren’t among the first private sector by any means.

Sure, but 8 years ago you'd have had a lot more people who had enough years in to get vested, grandfathered in, or close enough to have significant income from a partial pension. 2018, not as many survivors from those days. It's like water being turned off at a faucet, but a lot left in a long hose line to drain out.

 

[DeborahB]

I retired in 2010. Everyone I worked with was startled because jobs were being eliminated and they were hanging on, because new jobs didn’t exist. In my case I never wanted to get hired again.