Over the last 20 years, the percentages of households that will not be ready for retirement at age 65 has nearly doubled to 50%, according to recent data from the National Retirement Risk Index.
As fears of sustaining income throughout retirement arise, it has become clear that workers don’t always know how to prevent a possible shortage of money.
However, Prudential outlines a recent study from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College that backs up one of the more intuitive solutions considered by today’s workers: simply working longer.
If workers add five more years of work, the number of prepared retirees shifts dramatically, as the CRR’s report estimates that 86% of workers would then be ready for retirement.
“While many Americans' despair of ever being able to retire, the reality is that with a few extra years of work and a delay in taking Social Security, they can increase their chances of being able to have a more financially secure retirement,” said James McInnes, COO, total retirement solutions, Prudential Retirement.
To help customers with planning for this, a couple of insurers are attempting to get this information, as well as other tips, in front of customers, including Prudential, who released a white paper outlining retirement planning practices in tandem with the CRR’s findings.
Allianz Life also launched a new website dedicated to educating customers on retirement planning. The website offers a quiz for prospective retirees as well as a new framework intended to make retirement planning easier — the four Cs, which are clarity, comfort, cost of living and certainty.
A person may spend 30 years accumulating assets but then may not know how to convert those assets during the transition period into a stream of long-term guaranteed income,” said Gary Bhojwani, chairman of Allianz Life. “The interactive website is a great tool for beginning the process of thinking through key issues during the transition period to build a realistic, achievable retirement income plan.”
Justin Stephani is the associate editor at
