“60% of Millennials think it is harder to plan for retirement than to stick with a diet and exercise plan.”
Millennials and Retirement
One word sums up how Millennials tend to view planning for retirement:overwhelming. This is a very clear conclusion from this 2015 survey, which reveals attitudes about retirement in the U.S. You can easily guess why Millennials feel this way: soaring student debt, increased cost of living, stagnant wages for college graduates, and a lack of confidence in Social Security and the stock markets.
Diving into the data, it is not surprising that the millennial generation views traditional retirement as a mythical creature, out of reach and unattainable. “The majority of Millennials believe they will not be able to retire when they want to…with 28% believing they will never be able to fully retire.” So why bother planning for something that may not even be a possibility?
Here’s the reality: the concept of a “traditional retirement” is evolving and will continue to evolve. The advent of technology is increasing the amount of work completed remotely, while the drain of commuting to an office Monday-Friday 8am-5pm continues to decrease as technology advances. By the time Millennials begin turning age 65 in the year 2045, the logistics of working will likely have evolved into more flexible hours, a more flexible location, and “commuting” may be a word of the past. Therefore, the desire to fully retire may not be as strong of a pull as it was for their parents and grandparents.
Planning Steps
With this said, however, there will likely come a time where one no longer has earned income and must rely on an investment portfolio, along with other supplemental income sources. Therefore, making sacrifices to save for retirement will always be a key element, no matter which generation your birth year indicates. To create the opportunity to pull back from full or part time work someday in the future requires accumulating retirement savings over working years.
Meeting with a fee-only financial planner could be the first step in tackling an overwhelming goal, such as planning for retirement. For a complimentary consultation, call Sharkey, Howes & Javer today.
Source: “Will Millennials Ever Be Able to Retire?” research presented by the Insured Retirement Institute and The Center for Generational Kinetics
