Company-paid health insurance and pensions were uncommon. Most people s lifetime earnings didn t allow for much retirement savings, and the elderly were the poorest age group in America. Today no worker can be forced to retire at any age, assuming satisfactory performance. On the other hand, many people who saved aggressively while they were young are able to retire much earlier than age 65. Today millions of elderly Americans now live comfortably in retirement, with income from a combination of social security, private pensions and their own savings.
Many retirees have significant health care coverage from their previous employees.
While there is still much poverty among the elderly, as there is in every age segment, older people have a higher median net worth than any other age group, thanks in part to the rising value of their homes in recent decades. While today s retirees live far better than their predecessors, there is a lot of anxiety among younger Americans those in their 20s, 30s and 40s about their prospects for a comfortable retirement. Because many Baby Boomers married later and had children later than used to be normal, they will still be paying college tuition bills when they re in their early 50s at an age when people used to be devoting major parts of the career-peak earnings to retirement saving. For many of today s middle-aged parents of young children, it won t be sufficient to save first for college expenses and then for retirement. To achieve both savings goals, they must do it simultaneously which means heavy saving and deferred gratification.