29% of 55-59 Year Olds Plan to Work After 65

Today's article in the Sacramento Bee highlights Sac Co Sheriff McGinniss and a few others but is not off the mark for similar studies.

Consider this: You are eligible to begin withdrawals from your retirement accounts at age 59 1/2 yet can wait until you are 70 1/2 before you must start withdrawing funds from your retirement accounts. In addition, the age at which full Social Security benefits are available has risen from the traditional 65 to years and half-years above that based upon the year you were born.

Therefore, for many people, whether out of necessity or for reasons related to being active and involved, retiring from any type of work until later makes a whole lot of sense. Delaying retirement for a few years can preserve capital you can draw on much later. So even if you retire from your regular career and take on what I call a "survival job", you can keep those retirement accounts growing and still be able to be engaged in the workplace.

For many baby boomers, I certainly recommend they consider doing some work until 70 unless they have adequate retirement savings assets to retire earlier. This is especially true if they don't have risk factors for death before 85 yrs of age.

But if you can't work due to illness or disability, you need to have retirement assets in place that you can draw upon. There is no harm in intending to work beyond traditional retirement, but if you can't work, you will need income before Social Security kicks in as well as supplemental income to Social Security after you elect to take it. This is I think the main reason for playing it safe when it comes to socking away savings for retirement.

You just don't know what is going to happen.