This Is What Life Without Retirement Savings Looks Like

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/pensions-safety-net-california/553970/

CORONA, Calif.—Roberta Gordon never thought she’d still be alive at age 76. She definitely didn’t think she’d still be working. But every Saturday, she goes down to the local grocery store and hands out samples, earning $50 a day, because she needs the money.

“I’m a working woman again,” she told me, in the common room of the senior apartment complex where she now lives, here in California’s Inland Empire. Gordon has worked dozens of odd jobs throughout her life—as a house cleaner, a home health aide, a telemarketer, a librarian, a fundraiser—but at many times in her life, she didn’t have a steady job that paid into Social Security. She didn’t receive a pension. And she definitely wasn’t making enough to put aside money for retirement.

[Wingnut]

"And she definitely wasn’t making enough to put aside money for retirement."

Bullshit.  She could have but didn't.  No discipline.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I have no sympathy for any who do not save for retirement.

Nobody said it would ever be easy to do, but it certainly can be done by us all if able-bodied.

[RoosGirl]

Maybe if she had held down a steady job doing one or maybe even two different things for a decent amount of time...

[Sanguine]

Maybe if she had held down a steady job doing one or maybe even two different things for a decent amount of time...

No, no.  You're supposed to follow your dreams and all that crap.

[LMAO]

Bullshit.  She could have but didn't.  No discipline.

You know this how?

[Hoodat]

Roberta Gordon never thought she’d still be alive at age 76. She definitely didn’t think she’d still be working. But every Saturday, she goes down to the local grocery store and hands out samples, earning $50 a day, because she needs the money.

“I’m a working woman again,” she told me, in the common room of the senior apartment complex where she now lives, here in California’s Inland Empire. Gordon has worked dozens of odd jobs throughout her life—as a house cleaner, a home health aide, a telemarketer, a librarian, a fundraiser—but at many times in her life, she didn’t have a steady job that paid into Social Security. She didn’t receive a pension. And she definitely wasn’t making enough to put aside money for retirement.

If Roberta hadn't been forced to turn over 12.4% of her income to the government ponzi scheme at the point of a gun, she would have been able to invest it for herself and retire a millionaire.  And thanks to the Democrats, she now gets to pay income tax on her social security benefits.

[sneakypete]

"And she definitely wasn’t making enough to put aside money for retirement."

Bullshit.  She could have but didn't.  No discipline.

@The Ghost

Bullshit,yourself. You know nothing about her life or lives of her immediate family members,their health issues,their weekly living expenses,etc,etc,etc.

My father went to work in a shipyard after quitting school in the 3rd grade to help support  his family after his father died. He worked his whole life and AFAIK,only missed work one week after falling off a roof. I watched him sit it a empty bathtub one Sunday morning when I was 6 years old and pull 4 of his own abscessed teeth with a pair of waterpump pliers and a nutpick because he had to go to work on Monday morning,and couldn't afford to go to a dentist.

He ended up doing ok,but not great,while living a life only two paychecks away from disaster.

Many,many people live or lived similar lives.

[sneakypete]

If Roberta hadn't been forced to turn over 12.4% of her income to the government ponzi scheme at the point of a gun, she would have been able to invest it for herself and retire a millionaire. 

@Hoodat

HorseHillary! I have listened to ignorant middle-class or upper-class people regurgitate that nonsense all my life. She would have spent that money to make her life a little more pleasant.

You HAVE to be a fool to think that someone earning 100 bucks a week is going to invest all 12 additional dollars each week that brings them and turn it into a middle-class lifestyle.

[LMAO]

It seems conservatives are as simplistic in their thinking as progressives

[Hoodat]

@Hoodat

HorseHillary! I have listened to ignorant middle-class or upper-class people regurgitate that nonsense all my life. She would have spent that money to make her life a little more pleasant.

You HAVE to be a fool to think that someone earning 100 bucks a week is going to invest all 12 additional dollars each week that brings them and turn it into a middle-class lifestyle.

A person saving $12.40 a week from age 20 to age 65 at 7% would have over $200,000 when they retire.  However, no one working full time makes only $100/wk.  At minimum wage, 12.4% of income would yield $600,000 at retirement.  But it would really be a stretch to imagine a person earning minimum wage their entire working life, much less the ridiculous $100 scenario of yours.

Math is your friend.

[LMAO]

A person saving $12.40 a week from age 20 to age 65 at 7% would have over $200,000 when they retire.  However, no one working full time makes only $100/wk.  At minimum wage, 12.4% of income would yield $600,000 at retirement.  But it would really be a stretch to imagine a person earning minimum wage their entire working life, much less the ridiculous $100 scenario of yours.

Math is your friend.

Of course, if you’re a single mother trying to raise and feed your kids you can throw all that out the window. I once worked with a nurse who had 5 kids and her husband was killed by a drunk driver while the kids were young. She ended up working up until declining health forced her to retire. Go ahead and spell out your savings idea to someone in that situation.

I'm a realist. Both SS and Medicare are going to need serious reform as the lopsided demographics make sustaining either program in it's present form impossible. And, as a realist, I understand the sometimes cruel dynamics of life. These issues are more complicated than "she should have saved."

[Hoodat]

Of course, if your a single mother trying to raise and feed your kids you can throw all that out the window. I once worked with a nurse who had 5 kids and her husband was killed by a drunk driver while the kids were young. She ended up working up until declining health forced her to retire. Go ahead and spell out your savings idea to someone in that situation.

No problem.  How much did she earn per week, and how long did she work?

I'm a realist. Both SS and Medicare are going to need serious reform as the lopsided demographics make sustaining either program in it's present form impossible. And, as a realist, I understand the sometimes cruel dynamics of life. These issues are more complicated than "she should have saved."

First of all, see zero point in 'saving Social Security'.  A reformed ponzi scheme is still a ponzi scheme.  Secondly, no one said "she should have saved."  Because no one gets to 'save' the 12.4% that government takes away at the point of a gun.

[Wingnut]

The miracle of compound interest could have been the retched souls friend.  But a life time of her poor choices should make me weep for her.  I think not.

[Restored]

My sister is the same way. She works just to make payments. I pay $30 a month for a cell phone and she pays $200.

[LMAO]

The miracle of compound interest could have been the retched souls friend.  But a life time of her poor choices should make me weep for her.  I think not.

Yup

Poor choices like raising a family and feeding her kids

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

@The Ghost

Bullshit,yourself. You know nothing about her life or lives of her immediate family members,their health issues,their weekly living expenses,etc,etc,etc.

My father went to work in a shipyard after quitting school in the 3rd grade to help support  his family after his father died. He worked his whole life and AFAIK,only missed work one week after falling off a roof. I watched him sit it a empty bathtub one Sunday morning when I was 6 years old and pull 4 of his own abscessed teeth with a pair of waterpump pliers and a nutpick because he had to go to work on Monday morning,and couldn't afford to go to a dentist.

He ended up doing ok,but not great,while living a life only two paychecks away from disaster.

Many,many people live or lived similar lives.

Thank you for sharing sp, and I say that in earnest. What you say is true but what the ghost says is true as well. Some people are poor due to bad decisions and some are poor due to bad behavior and some are poor due to circumstances beyond their own control. Can't we just accept that as the truth?

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Of course, if you’re a single mother trying to raise and feed your kids you can throw all that out the window. I once worked with a nurse who had 5 kids and her husband was killed by a drunk driver while the kids were young. She ended up working up until declining health forced her to retire. Go ahead and spell out your savings idea to someone in that situation.

I'm a realist. Both SS and Medicare are going to need serious reform as the lopsided demographics make sustaining either program in it's present form impossible. And, as a realist, I understand the sometimes cruel dynamics of life. These issues are more complicated than "she should have saved."

What will be the future for the million of boomers who haven't saved? Will America let them starve on the street? The media will air countless pity stories... I foresee massive inflation in our future...

[sneakypete]

A person saving $12.40 a week from age 20 to age 65 at 7% would have over $200,000 when they retire.  However, no one working full time makes only $100/wk.  At minimum wage, 12.4% of income would yield $600,000 at retirement.  But it would really be a stretch to imagine a person earning minimum wage their entire working life, much less the ridiculous $100 scenario of yours.

Math is your friend.

@Hoodat

I know math is my friend. I don't think it is yours,though. There were damn few women earning 100 bucks a week in the 50's and 60's when that woman was working. My father was a 1st class framing and trim carpenter,and I was sent to the store every Friday night to cash his check for him,and the biggest paycheck he ever received in his entire working life was right at 130 bucks for a weeks work with overtime. Granted,housing and other living expenses were MUCH lower back then,but I doubt the typical woman worker brought home 75 bucks a week.

In other words,there is no way in HELL they are going to save an additional 12 bucks a week for 20 or 30 years. Most likely she would do something like put it in a Christmas Club savings account so she would have the "extra" money to buy presents for her family at Christmas.

The ONLY people who save money on a regular basis are the people who take home more than they need to spend,week in and week out. For example,if my father had been bringing home 200 a week at the time when a typical working-class family could get by fairly comfortably on 100 bucks a week,there is no doubt he would have saved money. Remember,he grew up scrambling to get the money to feed himself and his younger brothers and sisters every week,so he knew what kind of desperation being broke brings.

In FACT,he did manage to save money. Being a working young adult during the Depression and remembering the closed banks with missing deposits,he didn't trust banks,but he did manage to hide money in the house that he would use to buy a new car every 5 or 6 years as he needed one. He always paid cash because having payments scared the hell out of him.

Not a chance  in hell he was ever going to pull 12 bucks a week out of his paycheck to save for a future he might never live to see,though.

And he did live long enough to start drawing Social Security checks when he turned 62 and it was too hard for him to keep a job anymore. Without forced "Savings" through SS,he would have been screwed in his old age.

[sneakypete]

No problem.  How much did she earn per week, and how long did she work?


First of all, see zero point in 'saving Social Security'.  A reformed ponzi scheme is still a ponzi scheme.  Secondly, no one said "she should have saved."  Because no one gets to 'save' the 12.4% that government takes away at the point of a gun.

@Hoodat

Grew up in a middle-class home with at least one white collar professional as a parent,didn't you?

If not,you are just delusional and are confusing theory and fact.

[ConstitutionRose]

Mark for later.

[sneakypete]

Thank you for sharing sp, and I say that in earnest. What you say is true but what the ghost says is true as well. Some people are poor due to bad decisions and some are poor due to bad behavior and some are poor due to circumstances beyond their own control. Can't we just accept that as the truth?

@Weird Tolkienish Figure

Yes,but what *I* can't accept is a "One size fits all" economic plan. People pulling in a 6 figure annual salary today are obviously in a better position to establish a retirement account than the MUCH larger segment of the population that gets by on "survival wages".

And since there are and always be more people at the bottom of the economic ladder than at the top,the wealthy MUST contribute lo the social security system that provides an income for the working class poor.

If the wealthy are unlucky enough they lose their position due to accident,bad choices,law suits,being hooked to a dying industry,etc,etc,etc,they too will have money coming in when they are too old,too sick,or too crippled to work and provide for themselves. Even if they don't,they can still draw SS. At least one of the Rockefellers  was drawing SS back in the 60's.

[mountaineer]

I know a woman (met her through TOS, where she still posts) who is in a very similar situation to the woman in the article, i.e., having to go back to work in her late 60s or so just to keep a roof over her head.

It's hard to think about planning for retirement when you're young, beginning a family, etc., but it's absolutely essential. I've always been very frugal, and started saving and investing shortly after starting my career. Thankfully,  my parents then were inspired to contact my broker and start their own investment portfolio when they were in their 50s, because it enabled my mother to live comfortably after my father died.

[Gefn]

I guess I’m blessed my grandparents survived the Great Depression because I was brought up from four years old that every dollar I earned half went to savings and half was to be used. My allowednce? Half went into my savings and half I could spend or put into my piggy bank for a purchase like a Barbie or a record or what ever I wanted.


I’ve had to make a lot of sacrifices though with money I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t want to make. But that’s just me.

[Restored]

I personally don't know anyone who is in financial trouble because they made wise financial decisions. Everyone I know that is going into retirement without savings suffers from the weight of their own decisions. I have a cousin who claims she lost her savings due to cancer but she actually cashed in her 401k to open a tanning salon. My brother refuses to file taxes. My aunt retired the minute she could because they wouldn't let her smoke at her desk and she has outlived her pension. I know a large number of people who lost their savings to get on The Disability. Now they complain it isn't enough to live on.
My sister swears it is impossible to have a car without a payment. There is just no way to do it.