Читать книгу The New Retirement - Jan Cullinane - Страница 10

Before going forward, let's go back. The concept of retirement is fairly recent. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, few people retired, because they simply could not afford to do so. In the United States, the average lifespan for white men was 47; for men of color, it was 43. For white women, the average lifespan was 49 years and only 34 years for women of color. No time/not enough money = no retirement for the vast majority of people in the 1800s.

As white-collar jobs replaced a predominantly agricultural economy, however, incomes rose, and people had more money, along with longer lifespans. Improved sanitation, housing, education, the development of vaccines and antibiotics, and the subsequent decline in death rates among all ages increased average life expectancy. FDR signed the Social Security Act into law on August 14, 1935. Besides replacing some of the income that was lost due to retirement and creating somewhat of a safety net, Social Security was also an incentive to create job opportunities for younger workers. In January 1940, Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont, became the first recipient of Social Security benefits. And did she benefit! Ida lived 35 more years, and collected almost $23,000 in benefits before passing away at the age of 100. That's the equivalent of about $430,000 today.

Our current labor force, compared to Ida May's time, is larger, more diverse, older, and more female. In 2020, women held the majority of jobs for the first time (if you exclude farm workers and the self-employed), according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Declining births, coupled with longer lifespans, reduces the number of workers supporting each retiree. In 1975, there were about 3.2–3.4 workers per retiree. In 2013, there were about 2.8; in 2034, it's estimated that only 2–2.3 workers will be supporting each retiree, according to the Social Security Administration. There is a deeper exploration of Social Security in Chapters 7 and 8.

Many reading this book are in the Boomer cohort, defined as those born between 1946 and 1964. This group, about 75 million strong, has been described by demographers as a “pig in a python” due to the huge number of births fueled by the end of World War II coupled with a booming economy. And now Boomers are retiring or semiretiring. As mentioned in the book intro, 10,000 people will reach the age of 65 every day until 2030, when all Boomers will be at least 65. But you may be part of the 12 million households who “aspire to retire” by age 55.