Summary
Faced with inflation, taxes and concerns over the size of Social Security benefits, most Americans are more afraid of going broke in retirement than they are of death.
In total, 64% of respondents across generations said they are more stressed about running out of funds in their golden years than the prospect of death.
Americans say they need $1.26 million to finance a comfortable retirement, yet the median amount saved is $87,000. “Certainly for boomers…inflation is a big deal.”
This is one of the things I’ve hated most about this country for as long as I can remember. “Poor” is worse than “dead.” Not just because of the stigmas American society places on destitution, but because money equals value.
In the United States you have to be able to afford dignity. If you’ve got enough money when you die, you can die with dignity. But when you’re poor, you’re forced to live without dignity and are made to die without dignity.
A dead person with money is still a person. But a poor person, living or dead, is a lazy drug-addicted insect.
I think it’s more about having a roof over your head while you are in the physically hardest years of your life. You’re more vulnerable, have aches and pains, can’t go out and get a good paying job. It’s about feeling safe and secure in your last couple decades.
Yes, this is it. I worked at the same aerospace company for 40 years and retired this past January. As an engineer, I had done lots of spreadsheets and analysis to make sure I had some confidence that my wife and I could live the rest of our lives without being a burden on anyone. Now, just a few months later, my 401k and IRA are in the toilet, below the worst case of my worst case analysis, the administration is working to dismantle the social security and medicaid that I haven’t yet applied for, and my anxiety is through the roof.
I’ve never really been anxious about death. I mean, I’m not looking forward to it and I try to live in a way that puts it off, but every life ends eventually and I’m at peace with the fact that mine isn’t an exception. But what happens if I run out of money before then? How do I live? I’ve never been rich, but I’ve been super lucky to have a good enough income to feed myself and my family for 40 years. We had a couple times when unforseen issues made me worried about being able to pay our bills, but we were able to get through those times with some belt tightening. But now? I’ve never been so anxious in my life.
If I were you, I would just move out and retire in a country where your money goes farther.
People say that, but it’s much easier said than done. You can’t just decide to move to a country and go. Like the US, you have to apply. Many want proof that you have a useful skill. In some cases the application is expensive.
Also, we have kids and family. If I had to give up seeing them easily to live, I guess I would, but that thought is stressful too.
I get it because family is important. That is what keeps me here as well.
Can’t physically fix things you used to be able to fix on your own and have to rely on outside (and not always honest) help. So many elderly folks taken in by contractors, scammers, thieves…it’s really sad.
I don’t agree with you at all that the problem most Americans have with poverty is that it intrinsically removes your worth as a person. The problem we have is that being homeless is absolutely heart wrenching to watch and we cannot even imagine how difficult that would be to experience.
Edit: so everyone seems willing to believe people are vapid and soulless when there exists a very compelling alternative explanation. I guess humanity is as shit as it seems, guys.
Are you living in a different America than me? There are many many people around me who wouldn’t lift a finger to help someone they don’t know. “I would give him money but he would use it for drugs” and “i don’t want them becoming dependent on handouts” are both quotes i’ve heard from very otherwise charitable people while in a church. The very core of this culture has been infected with a deep malignant selfish fixation on money
Now conservatives are the only ones who count. Ok.
I never expected to retire, I’ll work the rest of my life.
Death isn’t scary, once you’re dead, you’re just gone. Being poor means uncertainty, vulnerability and discomfort (plus, as a bonus, often death). The one thing poverty has going for it is the possibility of getting really lucky and escaping before it kills you.
Right, this is a facet that a lot of people don’t get. I’m also more worried about smacking my toe on a table leg than I am of death, because I’m just not at all worried about death. When the game is over, it’s over.
Not having enough money to live sounds horrible though.
Death is retirement. Suicide when I can no longer work. They don’t leave all of these guns and fentanyl around for nothing.
There’s a third option where the people responsible retire with us
Getting awfully Blade Runner in here.
If I got a gun, they can retire me.
Suicide is going to become a popular retirement option.
Been my default plan A long before the economy went to hell.
I set up home medical equipment for 10 years, and by the eldery’s own words, even if lucky enough to have amoral levels of resources, it’s no life or victory, and certainly shouldn’t be your main life goal. Taking a dozen pills every day to stave of the inevitable, dealing with unyielding physical pain, even in the best of cases being cognitively dulled as if in a permanent, ever worsening brain fog as your very sense of self erodes until even those dozen pills can no longer cheat your body’s imminent failure any longer.
I’ll never understand regular people that live like monks just in case they don’t get hit by a bus or some debilitating disease and make it to… Their absolute shittiest years (them being the “golden years” was always marketing to keep you working your best years in service to sociopaths). Because sadly even in the supposed “good” times from the 90s onward, most people economically have to choose to live in the present, or do the supposed responsible thing and scrimp to subsist in the future when you’re no longer of use to the oligarchs.
Should have used all that money in your 401k to take a bunch of vacations back when you could actually fully taste the food, fully feel the wind in your face, fully partake in activities your failing body would no longer survive without injury or death, and fully imbibe the experience as more than a faint, fading shadow of who you once were.
And again, that’s from the experience of basically hearing how horrible it is from elderly people from the extremely wealthy to the extremely poor.
That is my retirement option. Figure an early retirement might be for the best.
Mine is life in prison.
Ive been thinking that for a the last few years. When I get to be too tired to work, Im just gonna get a gun and a bullet. I dont want to be doing physical labor at 70. Im almsot 36 and Im already getting tired. So if thats it, then thats it.
For the number folks:
The most respondents cited high inflation (54%), Social Security not providing as much financial support as they need (43%), and high taxes (43%). Boomers (61%) were more likely than millennials (56%) or Gen Xers (55%) to say high inflation contributed to their fear of running out of money.
But this fear is more prominent among Gen Xers (70%) who are in their 40s and 50s and fast approaching retirement and millennials (66%) than boomers (61%) who are over 60 and many have already retired.
Asian/Asian American respondents (34%) were more likely to have discussed this fear than white (22%), Black/African American (28%), and Hispanic (25%) respondents.
Interestingly no mention of Gen Z, who I guess is just starting their careers so might be why?
Though I’d imagine the doom and gloom is just as high for Gen Z if not more.
Wait. That’s not normal?
Lol death can’t be worse than capitalism
Of course they are, who cares about going broke in death?
We sure don’t vote like it.
Well, yeah; if you’re dead, the government and society won’t go out of its way to kick you in the head.
You underestimate the depravity of a large portion of our population.
Ehhh. I worked in EMS in the US for 15 years, people definitely thought worse of the homeless than the dead.
Removed by mod
More to the point, I don’t much care what society does with my head after I’m dead.
I’m 46. My expectation is that retirement will be completely impossible. I expect to die at my desk or in between visits to my desk.
They can never become a part of the demonic, worthless, piece of shit, drug addicted, criminal, rapist homeless population, because those are the very views THEY put onto those people.
You guys are retiring?
This wouldn’t be a problem if Americans learned how to be responsible citizens and vote responsibly.
At this point, voting responsibly means not voting for felon rapist traitors.
So pretty low bar.
