Is Retirement Still Achievable?

Let's face it, it's hard enough just to get by these days. Saving for retirement? Now that's a pipe dream for most Americans. Why is that? Are things really that bad? Let's take a look at retirement trends in the United States and see what's behind these worrying developments.

Why You'll Never Retire – Second Thought

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Citations and Further Reading:

Increase in the age of retirement and typical justifications

Estimates of the retirement age in the future

That Wikipedia page

97% of people depend on social security

Social security is the largest source of income for those over 65

Income and life expectancy data

Cases of declining life expectancy among the poor

Pensions go from 40% to 13% of workers covered (some sources go up to 20%, but all show a steep decline)

Pensions and 401(k)s, more generally

52% of Americans above 55 have no retirement savings

Private equity funds, $230 billion, largest transfer of wealth quote

The Trump 401k policy picked up by Biden

Camperforce

Labor militancy and retirement

Retirement, generally

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About Second Thought:
Second Thought is a channel devoted to education and analysis of current events from a Leftist perspective. Welcome!

[sarawilliam]

We experienced the peak of our era, and now it is gone. Recession is tanking everything including 401K. My retirement equities portfolio of $750K is in the reds. I keep losing because of inflation. This world will fall to the corrupt rulers in the same way that Rome did. I'm sorry if you're thinking about retiring and you're worried that your pension won't be enough to meet the rising cost of living. Horrible foreign policies everywhere, bad regulatory policy, bad fiscal policy, and bad energy policy.

[friggasring]

It's surprising to hear that retirement is so difficult given how many articles get shoved in my face about some 20-year-old who just retired. And all it took for them to do so was a modest loan of $200, 000 from their parents and ownership of a New York City apartment building which they rent out for more per month than their parents paid for it thirty years ago.

I asked my parents for the same thing; I'm just waiting for them to stop laughing so I can hear their answer.

[Raymondjohn]

Am 58 retiring next year but the thought of retirement gives me weakness. My apologies to everyone who have retired and filing social security during this time after putting in all those years of work just to lose everything to a problem you never imagined to happen. It’s so difficult for people who are retired and have no savings or loved ones to fall back on.

[bills.prestonesq.]

"The poorer you are, the earlier you are likely to die."
Damn, things are looking up

[alexander_sinclair]

"Poor people should just save money". Well, there goes the economy. (The economy relies on people spending money.)

[quinnrosenvold]

I live in Denmark. With current policies, my retirement age is 72, and the public pension that I'd get would be juuuust enough to scrape by (assuming the programme isn't gutted even more). Because of the work that I do, and my current health, I do not expect to live to be 72. I will likely be working until the day I die. Just to pull the curtain for anyone who still believes that Denmark is a fantastic and socialist nation. Social Democracy IS NOT Socialism. Capitalism is slowly chipping away at our freedoms here too. Get organized. Now.

[jessetorres]

My Grandmother celebrated her 75th birthday in December, but she still works 3 days a week to make additional money alongside her Medicare and Social Security benefits.
Edit/Update to address a few replies to my comment: My Grandmother works as a receptionist so it's nothing too physical for her and she likes the work, and she used to work full time but she just works part time. My Grandfather is 82 and has been retired for a while and he also is on Medicare and Social Security, she just likes to have extra money if they go on a trip or to give to my mom, my sister, and I if we need some. And as she has told me, the problem with retirement is you can only do so much at home before it gets boring and she gets along with the people she works with hence why she doesn't want to leave for good.

[derykmacleod]

I had a spinal cord injury at my job, a metal staircase in a 100 year old elementary school collapsed under me... 2 years shy of qualifying for a pension right before my 50th birthday. Because they offered workmans comp I couldn't sue them for unsafe working conditions...if a child fell they would have been able to sue for millions. I ended up getting 2 years of pay, paid out over 4 years and am still fighting disability to approve me. No one cares. If I got it in 1 lump amount I might have been able to invest in a rental property or something. I am 55, can't do shit and when I run out of money for pain management that I am paying for, I guess I get to kill myself. So much for the American dream.

[jimmzik]

LOL! I'm 69 and found ALL your videos (and not by mistake). Retired for 13 years now with little Social Security but lucky to have Medicare. My retirement system has decreased the medical benefits drastically in the last 5 years. People today have NO IDEA how important the Unions are to THEM and I'm glad you highlighted it.

[ClementRusso]

Retirees facing financial challenges often couldn't save enough during their working years. Retirement decisions play a pivotal role. Despite my parents having similar years in civil service, my mom invested with a wealth manager, while my dad relied on his 401(k). As a result, my mom retired with approximately 3.7 million, whereas my dad retired with around 1.4 million

[Kalepsis]

"It's a lot harder to leave [your job] when not only your salary, but also your retirement is on the line." Let's not forget health insurance. That's the other primary vehicle corporations use to keep people wage slaves.

[emiebex]

Interesting how only wealthy people like Mitt Romney are so determined to push Social Security back considering he's already Billionaire. Must be a case of I have mine, I don't want you to have at all?

[Solo_Videos]

As someone who lives paycheck to paycheck in the service industry, it's always frustrating to hear people tell me to "just save". Save what? If I'm lucky I'll have maybe 100 dollars left by the next pay period if I deny myself anything outside of boxed Kraft Dinner and Mr Noodles to eat, don't go out, don't have a drink to socialize, and don't run into an unexpected expense. I've had savings in the past, through stark moves in my lifestyle, only to have them wiped away by emergencies every time.

[bangbangfukanawa]

My grandmother is 82, she still works in the same bakery that she’s worked in for over 30 years. She can’t retire because she won’t be able to afford her rent, and she can’t apply for affordable housing until she stops working. Even if she could apply for affordable housing right now, housing authorities in our area have waitlists that are 3-10 years long. Not a great prospect for an 82 year old woman. My mom and I are doing what we can to help her prepare, we’re looking for two bedroom apartments for her and my mother to share, but they will still have difficulty affording their rent. We’re very worried and stressed.

[doggonemess]

I'm in my 40s and have been told by many people that I shouldn't expect to be able to depend on Social Security when I retire. This, along with everything else that has been happening over the last 20 years makes me think that we're all totally f'ed.

[Maya-diwg]

My 63 year old mom just retired from a public sector unionized job with a pension and health insurance. This should be the norm, not a flex. (Side note, she's looking for part time work to supplement her pension.)

[DinoCism]

Trigger warning (suicide, overdose crisis discussion):
This topic ties in deeply and brutally with the fentanyl crisis in North America, and I say that from personal experience. When you *know* you will be working in poverty and loneliness in a society eager to profit from your incarceration, make sleeping in your car the only possibly "affordable" form of housing, render the prospect of having a family a historical memory as distant and quaint as the idea of owning your own home and in a million other ways contribute to the mass throwing away of millions of people into the surplus population of homeless subhumans they now experiment with using robots to police and abuse... when these are your prospects for the future not only does the warm, numbing euphoria of fentanyl become appealing, so does the knowledge that you will die painlessly one night while passed out not knowing what happened. Any user who has had an OD and been narcanned knows exactly what is waiting for them when this addiction finally takes them and in comparison to the abusive horror show that is growing old in poverty, dying of what is essentially a medical self-euthanization honestly seems far more humane and palatable. The thing that really kills me, no pun intended, is that the rich know this. They know they've beaten us to such a humiliating extent that they have actually gotten us to remove ourselves from the population for them, like some sort of sick voluntary eugenics program. They want us dead and they have made a world in which we can't help but wanting to die, or at the very least being so desperate for some reprieve from the march towards a dark future that we know has no place for us that we will knowingly risk death just for a bit of empty pleasure in substitution for the false hope we no longer have. Of one thing I have never been more certain: hell is all on this side of the grave.

Good video btw Second Thought. Great content as always comrade.

[kimballspeakthreetheater]

"Some of those people who depend on Social Security to live never even make it to that age" and that is the exact point. The rich and powerful don't want the "Poor" in Merica to get A-N-Y help, from anywhere, not even when THEY PAID FOR IT IN ADVANCE.

[ItsJustIvan]

Sadness achieved in late stage capitalism

[RABIET]

Your channel is really depressive and never fails to put me in a bad mood.





And i love it