From the National Underwriter:
Boomers and current retirees share a deepening concern about soaring costs.
Pre-retirees and retirees also worry about protecting the value of their assets from inflation, having enough money to pay for long term care, paying for adequate health care, and maintaining a reasonable standard of living after the loss of a spouse, according to the authors of the Risks and Process of Retirement Survey Report from the Society of Actuaries, Schaumburg, Ill.
When the researchers commissioned a survey, they found that 57% of the participating retirees and 63% of pre-retirees cited inflation as one of the top retirement risks, while 52% of the retirees and 63% of the pre-retirees cited affording long term care as a major concern.
Affording adequate health care ranked third. That concern was cited by 51% of the retirees and 69% of the pre-retirees.
The authors of the SOA survey report also found a noticeable retirement concern gender gap.
Women are more concerned than men about inflation, with 62% of female participants and only 51% of the male participants identifying inflation as a top concern.
Women might be more concerned because 65-year-old women have an average life expectancy of 20 years, compared with an average life expectancy of 17 years for 65-year-old men, the authors of the survey report note.
The percentage of women expressing concern about various issues also was about 10 percentage points higher for affording long term care and affording acute medical care, and the percentage of women showing more concern was 15 percentage points higher for “depleting savings.”
Inflation isn’t going away folks, unfortunately. And it is unfortunate. Especially for seniors. You see, I occasionally I meet with folks who have been ingrained with the idea that Bank CDs are the holy grail of safe investments….and they can be “safe”, if “safe” means earning a fixed rate of return. But any imagined safety gets shot out the window when your blended rate of return on bank CDs pays 3% and inflation is 4%. Something to think about.
As for young families, I can understand how the price of gas today may seem more important than saving money for your future. It’s all over the news. “Record high gas prices.” Unfortunately, inflation is a fact of life with the U.S. Dollar. There is nothing any of us can do about it except to try to overpower its effects. And for that you have to…yup, you guessed it …you have to really start to save money, and save aggressively (and with a purpose in mind). Because gasoline, and many other things, will be much more expensive in the future. And, you’ll need a way to pay for them if you want those things.
_________________________This entry was posted on January 3rd, 2012 by David C Lewis, RFC. Edits may have been made to keep this entry current. · No Comments · Budgeting & Money Management, Current Events
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