Retirement prospects for middle-aged women look even worse than for men. The good news is, I think you’ll see a national movement toward communal housing that will benefit everyone:
“That’s the amazing thing about it,” said Heidi Hartmann, president of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, a think tank that studies issues about women and families. “The women of the baby boom generation worked longer; they earned more; they had more education. They did everything right.”
Now, in response to various pressures, some women are rethinking their plans for the future, changing their living arrangements and preparing to work later in life.
“I don’t know anyone who can afford to retire, and they’re all people my age,” said Leslie Clark, 64, a flight attendant for Delta Air Lines Inc. who lives in El Segundo. “Most of the people I know will have to find another career, and no one knows what it is.”
Clark says she expects about $20,000 of income in retirement from Social Security and various pensions. That would be less than half of what she took home in peak years with Delta.
Meanwhile, she labors to keep up with the cost of living. Her apartment costs $950 plus utilities. The Toyota payment is $509, and auto insurance eats up an additional $110 each month.
While my sons are willing, their wives are not happy with the prospect of taking in a midfifty something with a familia history of parkinsons, type 2 diabeties and thirty-two years of PTSS.
Note to those who would “semi-retire” ie. quit the extremely stressfull 45K postition in academia to start your own computer repair business: Never, NEVER, AR work in Nov or Dec - cash on the barrelhead only.
my 57 year old friend was told recently by a financial planner that she would have to save her entire income for 50 years in order to retire comfortably.
we just laughed.
Don’t forget to add in the cost of health insurance.
“The days they go slower the years they fly by
Til you’re too old to work and you’re too young to die.
………….
Who can you turn to? How will you get by?
When you’re too old to work and you’re too young to die.”
Scraps of a union song . I’ve heard it a couple of times
it always struck me to the heart.