2030

摘要

The retirement scenario everyone wants to avoid arrives in 2030. That's when the largest demographic group in U.S. history, the baby boomers, will have nearly depleted the Social Security trust fund. It's also when older Generation X-ers will begin moving out of work and into their golden years. But these won't be the years of leisure that recent generations have known. Consider a typical 2030 retiree-an educated Gen X woman, around 65, who has worked all her life at small and midsize companies. Those firms have created most of the new jobs in the economy for the past 50 years, but only 15% of them offer formal retirement plans. Our retiree has put away savings here and there, but she's also part of the middle class, which took the biggest wealth hit during the financial crisis of 2008. That-along with the fact that average real wages have been virtually flat for three decades, even as living costs have risen-means she has minimal savings, even less than the $42,000 that today's average retiree leaves work with.