Noah Shidelower
Appearances
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
This is unfortunately something that we have heard a lot from a lot of our readers.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
It seems almost every conversation that I have with older Americans... talk about that in some regard, where a lot of people are saying, I prepared well, but how well did I prepare? Or some people are saying, well, I don't have a ton of money right now, and I'm really nervous. And we have noticed this across the board, across wealthy individuals, people who are lower income.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
people who are relying on a lot of these social services. The Trump administration is saying, we won't touch Social Security, we won't touch benefits. But we are seeing a lot of changes right now. And we have spoken with a lot of these older Americans who are saying, well, I used to be able to get through to Social Security in 15 minutes without a concern with my benefits.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
Now I'm on the phone for four or five hours. We are hearing from a lot of people who are concerned about the future of Social Security. Will I continue getting the same allocation that I'm getting right now? And then you have just in general, a lot of older Americans are working later. So they're living longer, but they're also having to work a lot longer.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
We are seeing some pushes right now among some Americans. representatives in Congress to potentially even push back the retirement age from 67 to 69 or 70. So there's definitely a lot of fear that a lot that a lot of older Americans have that they will need to keep working or they'll have to work until their 70s to supplement Social Security.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
So we're looking at a lot of factors right now, a lot of indicators. The main thing that we're currently looking at is asset prices. A lot of older Americans and a lot of retirees who have a lot of equity in their homes and their home is essentially their retirement. This is a lot of money for some people. It's six, seven figures worth of retirement money.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
And if a lot of their equity goes down, if the housing market kind of collapses a little bit, that will get messed up for a lot of people. And it's hard for older Americans to downsize as well because there's... you know, not a lot of houses on the market right now that are selling for affordable rates. With inflation, there's many different ways of analyzing it.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
There's a measure that we use called the Alice Essentials Index.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
They look specifically at what's considered an essential. So grocery costs, for example, or housing, other sorts of medical expenses. This is what people need to survive. So this is a very interesting metric that we use to look at, well, OK, how is inflation impacting the economy? the person who is 75 and still working and is very cautious about their spending.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
And it's indicative that inflation is rising a little bit more for some of those essentials than it is for some of the other goods that they might not be purchasing on a daily basis.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
I don't think that there's really a type of unnecessary panic. There's a lot of change happening right now. There's a lot of uncertainty occurring right now. And people have lost a lot of money. When the S&P is down 10 plus percent this year, that's a lot of money that older Americans were relying on. It's a little scary for a lot of people. This is a lot of money that people were banking on.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
And... They don't know if they should be tapping into their 401ks. They don't know if they should be relying more on other sorts of income and then they won't touch their 401k. So it's definitely all very valid. But I also think some of them are a little bit misguided. especially because Social Security benefits have not been cut. They have not cut Medicaid yet.
Today, Explained
Retire? In this economy?!
They have not touched Medicare yet. We just don't know what will happen. And we have been hearing from a lot of financial experts who this is their job. They speak with people who have been doing this for 30, 40 years, and they say you should stay tight, hang on, and don't do anything too drastic that you may regret later.