About one-quarter of U.S. adults age 50 and older who are not yet retired say they expect to never retire and 70% are concerned about prices rising faster than their income, an AARP survey finds.
About 1 in 4 have no retirement savings, according to research released Wednesday by the organization that shows how a graying America is worrying more and more about how to make ends meet even as economists and policymakers say the U.S. economy has all but achieved a soft landing after two years of record inflation.
Everyday expenses and housing costs, including rent and mortgage payments, are the biggest reasons why people are unable to save for retirement.
I really think that some time should be given to personal finance in school curriculum.
When I went through, we learned to write a check and balance a checkbook. That was it.
Yeah, schools should be teaching more about financial literacy, but it’s impossible to teach kids about good habits for retirement 40+ years down the road when the laws that govern their retirement haven’t been written yet.
Heck, I’m old enough that my first job out of college actually had a pension plan. I never expected to work long enough there to take advantage of it, though. And I was correct – even if I didn’t leave when I did, the place eventually went bankrupt. Any advice they would have given me in high school about retirement savings would be obsolete now.
The only advice that is eternal is to save money, and live below your means. That seems difficult these days, though, especially for young kids just starting out.
My oldest did have to take a personal finance class in high school (last year) and did cover things like retirement saving and different methods of. I think some places are trying.
Edit: I, on the other hand, had your experience.
Doesn’t matter how many classes you take when there’s multiple Financial collapses in your lifetime
My high school had a mandatory senior class that taught things like budgeting, investing, filing (very simple) taxes, and balancing a check book. It also required you to do some form of community service. The investing portion was bad as it was basically stock picking with fun money.
It’s hard to say how much the class impacted me as I don’t have a control, and I then proceeded through four years of college not really exercising those skills. I suspect it’s not a silver bullet, but still a positive inclusion in the curriculum.
These days I’m sure we would see students saying they went SPY 0DTE YOLO because of WSB’s popularity
Managing your finances can only do so much when you barely bring in enough to cover rent.
It definitely isn’t the case that a quarter of the country can’t afford to save anything though their whole working life.
I’m not sure it will help in this scenario. This is more of an instant gratification thing. Whether someone has a bit extra or not, you’re asking them to do without, on the hope that it will be more useful in half a century. This is completely against human nature.
Definitely. I’m a branch manager and we’re putting together a financial training class for our employees because everyone is so bad at budgeting (like non existent to I don’t understand percentages … this is common core at work). School system has completely failed at this and many parents have as well.