Another Sign of How Bad Retirement Will Be

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.

New data from Interest.com indicates that most other studies of how financially tough retirement will be for almost every American are accurate.

The recent study indicates that older Americans face income shortfalls in 48 states. And there will be no increase in federal government assistance because of the already crippling costs of Social Security and Medicare. With the drive toward austerity to solve the budget deficit problem, the number of people in retirement who face poverty or near poverty will hit epidemic proportions.

According to CNNMoney, which analyzed the report:

Seniors in almost every state in the country are falling short when it comes to affording their golden years, according to a study released Monday.

Nationwide, seniors are living off of a median household income of $35,107, roughly 57% of the median income of their younger counterparts ages 45 to 64, according to an analysis of 2011 U.S. Census Bureau data by Interest.com, a financial information website owned by Bankrate.com.

“We found that many senior citizens are significantly underfunded and risk running out of money,” said Mike Sante, the site’s managing editor.

Only seniors in Nevada and Hawaii have median annual incomes that meet the savings benchmark commonly recommended by financial planners. Typically, planners recommend that retirees save enough to replace at least 70% of their pre-retirement income.

Other states where seniors came close to that goal include the sunbelt states of Arizona (68.1%), New Mexico (66.9%) and Florida (66.9%), according to the study, which divided the median household incomes for residents 65 and older by the incomes of those 45- to 64-years old in each state to come up with income “replacement rates” for seniors.

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Featured Reads

Our top personal finance-related articles today. Your wallet will thank you later.

Continue Reading

Top Gaining Stocks

CBOE Vol: 1,568,143
PSKY Vol: 12,285,993
STX Vol: 7,378,346
ORCL Vol: 26,317,675
DDOG Vol: 6,247,779

Top Losing Stocks

LKQ
LKQ Vol: 4,367,433
CLX Vol: 13,260,523
SYK Vol: 4,519,455
MHK Vol: 1,859,865
AMGN Vol: 3,818,618