Why not? It's the gubmint's system now ... or will be in a heartbeat.
Posted on 02/13/2014 9:40:50 AM PST by NormsRevenge
Over the course of their 60-year marriage, Bernard “Bernie” Karpinkski and his wife, Violet, took few chances when it came to their retirement.
“From the time we were married, we started saving,” says Bernie, 89, who lives in Pueblo, Colorado. “We lived much more conservatively than most people. We had three cars our entire lives and drove them until they had close to 200,000 miles on them before we bought another. We didn’t buy our second home until we had enough saved to pay cash.”
While their friends moved into bigger homes, took vacations and put their life on plastic, Bernie and Violet used a 50/50 income split — they lived off of Bernie’s income as an electrician and put every dollar Violet earned from her job as an office secretary in the bank.
“We lived conservatively and saved for our retirement years so we could travel,” Bernie told Yahoo Finance.
They succeeded but things didn’t work out quite as planned. Not long after Bernie punched out of work for the last time, Violet was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. After more than a decade helping her battle the disease along with a slew of other medical issues, Bernie had no choice but to move her to an assisted living center in 2011.
"Social Security and my pension didn't begin to take care of the cost," he said. Medicare wouldn't cover her expenses either. So instead of cruise ships and hotel stays, Bernie poured their life savings into a $6,700/month room in the center’s dedicated Alzheimer’s wing. "It was only because of our savings that I could do it."
Retired and broke
More than 90% of people over age 65 currently receive Social Security benefits, without which a surprisingly large number of seniors would be destitute.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
I know a fellow who lost his wife shortly after retiring.
He went to Belize.
The official language there is English.
just sayin.
People in their forties and fifties can talk about working longer, but when they hit their sixties, reality starts to bite. As you get older, the odds increase that you have health issues; and it's inevitable that your energy level will start to flag at some point. Even if you avoid those problems for a while, if your job can't be done on a professional or independent contractor basis, you need an employer who's willing to keep paying you. (Age discrimination is a real thing.)
I'm now working past retirement age, but independently. I know that when I get sick, or can't cut it mentally or physically, or when the clients just stop calling -- then I figure out what Plan B is. Good luck to all of us.
Nothing ameliorates this sort of problem faster than a serious social shooting war.
And on the bonus side, think of who the first targets will be by ALL sides? The world isn't big enough for them to hide.
They know who they are.
What does this fellow do if another Obama cuts his SS check by 50%, either directly or through inflation? Or stops all SS checks altogether?
Just askin'
ZIRP won't do BORP to ARRGH, unless YIKES is redirected by WTF!
The Death Panels will “fix” a lot of this.
Every year sliced off the lifespan is HUGE for SocSec and Medicare financials.
Don’t know.
“More than 90% of people over age 65 currently receive Social Security benefits, without which a surprisingly large number of seniors would be destitute.”
the government creates the problem by stealing %15 of everyone’s income right off the top for Social Security and Medicare taxes then claims it a good thing we get social security and medicare.
No, that's about right. We placed my mom-in-law in an assisted living center when it became difficult for us to care for her in our home. Cheapest costs start around $5000 and go up from there. She is not bad off compared to others, so does not need a high level of assistance. Costs were explained to us. The harder it is to care for someone, the more charges that are tacked on. This includes medical assistance on site, administering medicine, transport to doctor's offices, special feeding etc. After seeing first-hand how they care for dementia patients I realize the costs are justified.
If millions and millions of people, who would have formerly died at 70, are now, through (expensive) medical advances, living to 90, thats an extra 20 years. How do you expect these extra 20 years to get paid for? Obviously having the government do it isn’t a viable model. So whats your option?
I would have thought you'd come up with TURD.
$6700/month you could hire live in help 24/7.
Don't you know there is no down side to free trade. It is all good you silly protectionist you, now shut up and buy Chinese... < /sarc >
“but now, we find they were empty promises”
All promises that require taking one persons money and giving to to someone else are empty, eventually.
Well of course....Why blame it on them as most milk the OT in their last two years in an effort to put some cops in the 100k per year retirement club...Their just innocent by-standers like all the other big gov agencies...Right?
You betcha!
“If a worker were to retire at age 62 this year, she’d only stand to earn $1,992 a month in benefits. She would earn $2,431 by waiting to collect until age 65 and more than $3,500 a month if she were to wait until the maximum age of 70. “
Except that these days there ain't that many jobs for people to keep working longer at.
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