#retirement security

via twitter.

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Assisted living seems like the solution to everyone’s worries about old age. It’s built on the dream that we can grow old while being self-reliant and live that way until we die. That all you need is a tiny bit of help. That you would never want to be warehoused in a nursing home with round-the-clock caregivers. This is a powerful concept in a country built on independence and self-reliance.

The problem is that for most of us, it’s a lie. And we are all complicit in keeping it alive.

The assisted living industry, for one, has a financial interest in sustaining a belief in this old-age nirvana. Originally designed for people who were mostly independent, assisted living facilities have nearly tripled in number in the past 20 years to about 30,000 today. It’s a lucrative business: Investors in these facilities have enjoyed annual returns of nearly 15 percent over the past five years — higher than for hotels, office, retail and apartments, according to the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing and Care.

via New York Times.

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America’s long-term care crisis is worsening.

Long term care is something most of us will need as we grow older…

…Unfortunately, this type of care is extremely expensive, and for many Americans, downright unaffordable. Most seniors simply don’t have the average $100,000 a year for a nursing home, $45,000 for assisted living, or $33,000 for in-home care…

As if Americans’ Social Security retirement benefits were not already sufficiently modest, conservatives have come up with a new ploy to erode them under the guise of something positive: paid family leave. The Cradle Act, introduced last week by Sens. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Mike Lee (R-Utah), would encourage new parents to accept federally-paid family leave in exchange for much-needed Social Security retirement benefits later.

“You can take one, two or three months of parental leave and as a consequence of that, choose to delay your retirement date by two, four or six months," Senator Lee explained. Note the Senator’s use of the word “consequence.” Paid family leave should not entail “consequences” for new parents, least of all the sacrifice of their future retirement benefits.

The federal government should fund family leave. But why help new parents out in the early years only to penalize them as seniors?

It’s no secret that American workers face a major – and very real – retirement crisis. Wealth inequality and workplace changes have all but kicked-out two of the legs of the traditional retirement stool: pensions and private savings – both of which are at historic lows. More and more retirees have come to rely on the third leg of the stool, Social Security, for most of their income. (The average monthly Social Security benefit in New Jersey is about $1,500 or some $18,000 per year, only a few thousand dollars above the federal poverty line.) 

Even with Social Security, nearly 7% of New Jersey seniors live in poverty. The good news is that workers can increase the size of their future Social Security checks by delaying retirement.

via NJ.com

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You can learn more from our education initiative, Delay & Gain, by clicking here.

About half of private sector employers don't offer a retirement plan. That means about a quarter of Americans retire on not much more than social security, even those who've worked all their lives.

via NPR.

The mother of all political battles is coming, and it’s about a wall.

No, not that one. It’s another, much bigger wall. One that fewer people are talking about — so far.

It’s the wall that Social Security is due to run into in just 15 years.

That’s when, say Social Security’s trustees, the program’s trust fund is scheduled to run out of money. If nothing else is done, they say, after 2034 Social Security’s annual income will only be enough to pay “about three-quarters of scheduled benefits.”

We’re talking about a 25% cut in payments.

via MarketWatch.

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We have called on Congress to BOOST Social Security benefits for all working Americans.