Posted on 12/30/2018 6:14:10 AM PST by Galatians328
A new data analysis by ProPublica and the Urban Institute shows more than half of older U.S. workers are pushed out of longtime jobs before they choose to retire, suffering financial damage that is often irreversible.
(Excerpt) Read more at propublica.org ...
[I am in the trades and I have always been pretty much self-employed]
You can always find work in the trades and work whenever you want. One of the best moves I ever made was going to tech school (HVAC) in the early 80’s for it. You can always make a buck for yourself.
I was also very blessed to have a father who was in the building line for 60 years. Learned a huge amount from him. He “retired” at 82 and is still going strong at 90 now.
I was suddenly “retired” at 66 with a morning phone call ... impromptu (my boss and even the regional boss didn’t know it was coming) retirement lunch at noon, turn in my company laptop that afternoon. At that age I was thinking about going, and thought I was financially prepared, but I didn’t want to call it quits at all.
Health insurance ended on my last day, much to my surprise. Two weeks later (at a pay-with-cash doctor’s appointment scheduled before my “retirement”) I was told I probably had well established prostate cancer (I did, and had no clue that I did). Luckily I was eligible for Medicare, retroactive a couple of weeks, and luckily there are insurance plans that don’t question your health for people at Medicare age. Otherwise a $280 thousand (hospital retail cost) course of radiation treatment would have been out of the question. The insurance company had to pay only about $35 thousand at their contracted rate - that retail cost is a whole ‘nother subject!
All things being equal, if your advisor says wait, then I’d wait.
#metooalso
Got put out in my 40s, floundered around for a while, contracted in Iraq then settled down in my own business writing kick-butt resumes for people like those affected in the article.
If you hire 10 H1B’s, you will have problems with 3 of them. They either leave abruptly, send out emails with terrible grammar, yell at someone they should not have yelled at, run into visa troubles or functional people can’t understand them.
Corporations have a hard time hiring H1B’s which is why they tend to work for contracting outfits that pay them very low wages. The people who can hire them easily is the government because they can sponsor more easily.
Pro Public and the Urban Institute.
SNORT.
Trust but verify. Big time.
Curious, what writing service did you use?
“Amazing how these MBA’s can filter everything by the $$$ and miss the mark on how what they do affect the total health of the company they supposedly are representing. Most of them (like the Brown Shirts) were the next on the chopping block...”
Except for those who manage to get promoted before the effect of their short-sighted, resume-serving decisions come home to roost. Those geniuses get to screw up things from an even broader perspective.
Our previous 3 presidents enabled their corporate donors to hire foreign workers and h1-b’s.
Then, replace American workers with them and use the substitutes until they wore out and then hire more.
I’m over 60, so maybe this is a bad time to say:
Happy New Year, FRiends! Hang in there!
“Outta Here” for the rest of the Holiday...
Thank you...
I wondered if appeals were sent around to contribute to special circumstances....Like a hugely expensive surgery—tho now it seems that every surgery is hugely expensive....From what you are telling me, that is not the case.
Do you tell doctors’ offices you are paying with cash?
“Most big health care expenses for companies revolve around pregnancies.”
I was always told it was the ‘Big C’.
A company encounters far more pregnancies that Cancers. Any complication with a pregnancy really jacks up the cost. We did a study back in the 1980’s on the company’s health care costs. We had 4 employees out of 1,000 eating up 50% of our health care costs. But over time, pregnancies took the most money.
That mirrors my experience.
I side-stepped this by working for a major university. They are very careful about any perceived discrimination of any kind.
They do offer early buyouts, but there is little pressure. I can pretty much keep working well into my 60s. What I have lost in pay the past 35 years by working at this type of job, I have gained by steady, solid pay and a rarity these days, a defined pension plan.
I’ve watched almost all my friends get screwed over starting in their 40s & 50s at work in some fashion. It’s a minefield out there career-wise.
I’m close to getting early SS. What are your thoughts on taking that option as opposed to waiting for the max? I’m in a similar situation as yours. Thank you
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I started a post on FR just over a year ago, specifically on that question. Freepers were incredibly gracious and there’s plenty that have had the same question. There was a lot of knowledge in their experience. An overwhelming theme was they did it and didn’t regret it. So I did and I don’t either. But every situation is different. I still work but I cut my hours and I get a small pension. I’ll be 64 in a couple of days. It made sense for me.
Our great CPA and personal friend told me to sign up for the age 62 SS and to minimize my consulting and stay home more instead of dying in some airport trying to make flight connection.
I’m eighty now, so that was a good move and like you my SS and retirement $’s enabled me/us to maintain our 401k’s and IRA’s until mandatory minimum yearly withdrawals because of our age.
Our CPA advised my wife to do the same and go from working 4-5 days per week to 2-3. She negotiated with the doctors’s group my wife worked with re no health insurance from the group with my coverage of her with my retirement package to getting more $’s put into her 401k. We started an IRA for my wife to save more and to shield more income from taxes besides maxing out her 401 K donations from her and her bosses. That made sure, that she didn’t get penalized for making to much money while getting her SS.
Do the calculations on the SS web site and see how long it will take to break even between collecting early and waiting for the max.
At the risk of offending some and tempting fate because I am in the same bucket - mid 50s in an executive position - here are my observations.
Yes, there is definitely a productivity curve with regard to just about any position. The best work is often done early in the curve and after a time, the productivity peaks and then declines proportional to years in a given position. Employees tend to put themselves on remote control after a number of years in a position, get into a comfort zone, and while it may not be perceptible to them that their performance is declining, it is usually obvious to others.
That said, there certainly are employees who maintain a high level of productivity in the same position year after year. They they are in the minority. I find in my business that 7 years seems to be maximum effective time for a given position. After that, it's time to move up or move out.
In my own experience, I was a branch manager up in Boston for nearly 10 years. I was perfectly fine where I was and would have gladly worked that job for retirement. And to be honest, I was mailing it in on some days because the job of running a branch office became so easy for me (just hire good people under you!).
But when Regional VP job came up, I saw the handwriting on the wall and went ahead and applied for it. Even though it meant a move to New York, I saw myself in a "static" position up in Boston and I just didn't have the passion for the job I used to. By staying, I could well have been setting myself up for a pink slip. So moving to the higher position was the best move. Even though the cost of living down here wiped out most of my raise, my career was re-invigorated and I had sufficient challenges to keep me busy all the time. Also, the person who took my place in Boston is similarly re-energized Today, despite being in my mid-50s, I am much more valuable to the company as a Regional VP than I was as a branch manager 5 years ago. Now I do not take my job for granted. Over the next few years, I'm going to have to make a choice. Either go for the next rung on the ladder (or perhaps a lateral move to corporate) or go out on retirement. So again, I'm coming into another "move up or move out" situation.
Now I hope making this post doesn't jinx me and I walk into work next week to a pink slip!
Another challenge "more seasoned" employees have is keeping up with technology. Despite my age, I keep up with the emails, texts and social media of my younger colleagues as well as all the mobile apps. It's a matter of survival to me. Too many others in my age group took almost a pride in spurning all the technological changes (i.e. "I'm not carry no cellphone") and most of them red-slipped themselves into involuntary early retirement.
There are books written on it. MBA/ consulting firms are the cancer attacking US businesses. They turned my $3B company into a $1B company in less than 18 months.
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