Laura Bassett lbassett@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting
First Posted: 07-30-10 03:11 PM | Updated: 07-30-10 04:48 PM
After working in executive management for over ten years with a steadily increasing salary, Rick Stephens, 51, was laid off from his job in June 2008. Two years of steady unemployment later, he has sold his car, moved in with his 75-year-old father and blown through all his retirement savings.
I pay my bills with what is left of the savings I accumulated by being frugal all my life, but I'm going through that pretty fast," he said. "I have tapped my IRA, and the result of that is I will be heavily taxed on it next April. I honestly believe that there will be no recovery from this. If there is a recovery, it will be too late for me, as I will have exhausted my savings and my retirement that I had socked away by not living the high life.
Stephens' predicament is an increasingly common. This recession has wreaked havoc on the retirement incomes of millions of Americans. Many who have planned and saved their entire lives, have watched that money drain out of their accounts.
To make matters worse, many corporate IRA accounts were looted by fund managers and the retiree lost one third of their IRA savings after they were laid off.
Retirement statistics are grim. The percentage of American workers who said they have less than $10,000 in savings grew to 43 percent in 2010, according to a recent survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
Nearly a quarter of the workforce said they have postponed their planned retirement in the past year and a CareerBuilder.com survey reports that 61 percent of workers say they are now living paycheck to paycheck, as compared to 43 percent in 2007.
source: Huffington Post
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First Posted: 07-30-10 03:11 PM | Updated: 07-30-10 04:48 PM
I pay my bills with what is left of the savings I accumulated by being frugal all my life, but I'm going through that pretty fast," he said. "I have tapped my IRA, and the result of that is I will be heavily taxed on it next April. I honestly believe that there will be no recovery from this. If there is a recovery, it will be too late for me, as I will have exhausted my savings and my retirement that I had socked away by not living the high life.
Stephens' predicament is an increasingly common. This recession has wreaked havoc on the retirement incomes of millions of Americans. Many who have planned and saved their entire lives, have watched that money drain out of their accounts.
To make matters worse, many corporate IRA accounts were looted by fund managers and the retiree lost one third of their IRA savings after they were laid off.
Retirement statistics are grim. The percentage of American workers who said they have less than $10,000 in savings grew to 43 percent in 2010, according to a recent survey by the Employee Benefit Research Institute.
Nearly a quarter of the workforce said they have postponed their planned retirement in the past year and a CareerBuilder.com survey reports that 61 percent of workers say they are now living paycheck to paycheck, as compared to 43 percent in 2007.
source: Huffington Post
Subscribe to the Rightardia feed: feeds.feedburner.com/blogspot/IGiu
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