Robert Brokamp

Here to tell us is Kerry Hannan, a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance and the co-author of Retirement Bites, a Gen X Guide to Securing Your Financial Future.

Kerry, welcome to Motley Fool Money.

Hey, it's great to be here, Robert.

Love the book.

I love the fact that you have all kinds of great references to Gen X, I being an older Gen Xer myself.

So let's start with just the stats.

Generally speaking, how is Gen X doing when it comes to being prepared for retirement?

Exactly.

I think one of the issues, of course, is that the way that American safe retirement has changed significantly over the past 50 years, just as Gen X was entering the workforce coming of age.

What would you say are some of the changes that have had the biggest impact on Gen X?

Yeah, the 401ks came about, as you said, in really the early 80s, but it took a while for them to proliferate.

And they just weren't that great at the beginning.

High costs, maybe two or three options.

The contribution levels weren't that high.

Same with IRAs.

They came out in the 70s.

Contribution limits were $1,500, moved up to $2,000, but still not a lot of money.

I've talked about before that when I joined The Motley Fool back in 1999, our 401k wasn't very good because if you were a small new business, you just couldn't get a 401k.

Fortunately, things are better now, but it's to a certain degree maybe come a little late for Gen X.

I love that.