Traditionally, retiring entails leaving the workforce permanently. However, experts found that the very definition of retirement is also changing between generations.
About 41% of Gen Z and 44% of millennials — those who are currently between 27 and 42 years old — are significantly more likely to want to do some form of paid work during retirement.
…
This increasing preference for a lifelong income, could perhaps make the act of “retiring” obsolete.
Although younger workers don’t intend to stop working, there is still an effort to beef up their retirement savings.
It’s ok! Don’t ever retire! Just work until you die, preferably not at work, where we’d have to deal with the removal of your corpse.
So much propaganda in this article.
Knowing you won’t be able to retire, and making plans accordingly, is acceptance of the situation.
It’s not a fucking preference.
I could see some people wanting low level jobs in their retirement because they don’t know what to do with their time otherwise.
But it should absolutely not be a requirement.
For sure.
A some people do just like to work.
But I think most people would prefer to do their own things, work on their own projects and hobbies, instead of someone else’s.
Acting like it’s a preference to work past retirement, instead of a the financial reality for most of us, is such a load of horseshit I was tempted to write a complaint to the editor that this wasn’t published as an opinion.
Lol even the summary says what they really mean
3 in 4 of Gen Z would rather have a better quality of life than have extra money in their banks, a report by Intuit shows.
“3/4 of gen z know that the world is probably gonna be pretty fucked up when they reach retirement age, so they’re doing their best to live an ok life before that happens”
Literally all of the climate change stuff they said was going to happen 50 years from now is happening now. So yeah I’m going to be 70 years old fighting for scraps with a billion refugees in lower Canada. Why the fuck shouldn’t I make sure I have fun now? The odds of getting enough money to get out of that situation are vanishingly small so fuck it.
So sick if seeing these articles framing “millennials/gen z killed xyz” as a preference or a want.
Remember when we killed the diamond wedding ring industry? We can’t pay our rent ffs.
This is it, right here. I’m a little older than the age range listed in the article and I literally became a nurse with the explicit expectation that I will have to work until I can’t stand up anymore. At least this pays well and gives me lots of options for working environments that might be a little more compatible with old age.
But the idea that I’ll ever be able to not work AND also afford healthcare? Impossible. Not going to happen. Might as well accept it.
Maybe, just maybe, Gen-Z is not saving as much for the future because (1) they have less money to save due to inflation, and (2) they don’t foresee a viable future. These reasons can also explain the parenthood rate dropping lately.
Main reason I never had kids was I was screwed over by just about everything financially. Student loans, housing/“financial crisis”, medical system, deck stacked against self-employment, predatory credit cards. Great job, USA. Then the same cunts who did that bemoan low birth rates and cry about immigrants.
There are TOO MANY procedures/fees/tax/unsafe ways to lose everything you have or be in a position where you will never be able to live without constantly being demanded to provide more work/cash/time.
Agreed, life wasn’t this shakey in the past. Depression era: certainly, but it was caused by the same BS we are dealing with now. For example, it’s amazing that medical bills are a leading cause of bankruptcy and thus degradation of quality of life in the US, and there’s little will among politicians or citizens to do much about it. You could save up enough money to retire, even have good insurance, and then be screwed because you or any member of your family had a severe illness or accident, and lose everything.
Despite all that, things are overall better than previous generations. There is and always has been bad news. Life has always been a constant string of disasters, yet when you pause for a moment to reflect you realize that despite the bad news, overall it wasn’t that bad.
In many countries, yes. People in India and China for instance are on average more likely to not be in severe poverty and subsistence vs 40 years ago, though western-style modernization has caused it’s own problems. However most people are less well off in the US than we were in the 50s-90s. Reagan economics seems to have been ‘wait, why are we letting the middle class exist? We could just keep all their money’. Seriously though i was completely fucked over by what I mentioned and it’s only based on luck that I’m not homeless.
I saw a report that someone my age will need $3m to retire at 65. The average total income from 22-65 for people my age is around $1.4m. So I guess we never get to retire.
I saw a report that someone my age will need $3m to retire at 65. The average total income from 22-65 for people my age is around $1.4m. So I guess we never get to retire.
Compound interest might get you to that goal, maybe, if you start saving now.
The “start saving now” part is the bit that fucks most people.
When over half of Americans live paycheck-to-paycheck, saving is not even a possibility.
If inflation is as high as it currently is compared to the collected interest it does not matter how much compounding is done, the buying power of that savings will flatline. Add to this equation the need to eat and live now, the amount most put away is minimal and when something comes up even those meager savings are wiped out.
The math in most households is not working out. Debt is becoming peoples rainy day fund, people are unable to even pay their property taxes with the now insufficient government minimum pensions (and a lot of people don’t think these pensions will even be there when they are eligible). This leaves people selling things (reverse mortgage, downsizing, moving to lower COL areas, etc) taking on debt to live now and generally giving up.
If you put away $50 a week for 10 years you end up with (based on a generous average 2% rate) $28,554.34. This seems like a good amount but keep in mind that you put $26,000 into this. That $2554.24 does not beat the loss of buying power over 10 years. You need much closer or better returns vs inflation for this to work in your favour. I was once told that you would be better off buying some raw metal like lead, or copper as the return on simple materials at least keeps up with costs.
There is no magic number you need. $3m will get you some lifestyle. You could retire at 40 with only $300k if you want to live the lifestyle that means (move to very low cost of living area where you walk to groceries). And there is a good chance social security will continue to provide a minimal income once you reach whatever age.
Historically no young generation has saved a lot. It is when you get older you realize how much it matters.
People who grew up in the Great Depression did. Silent generation remembers that…
are currently between 27 and 42 years old — are significantly more likely to want to do some form of paid work during retirement.
Want is not the right word there, and it completely changes the message. This is a fucking hit job, trying to convince people that company executives stealing pension plans, and a failed society that abandons its elderly, is something young people desire.
I would have retired 20 years ago if I could. I will never understand people that say they don’t know what they’d do with themselves in retirement. What unimaginative and boring people they must be. I have a thousand interests I can’t fully pursue because of work obligations.
This was my stepdad, always said that. I just would tell him “whatever you want.” And it wasn’t for a lack of hobbies, he has plenty. I just don’t understand the mindset of people that want to “work.” Like, I love making things and “working” on my own things, but never have I gone to work and happy to be there. To work for a manager that micromanages me, another manager who want me to falsify records, (that btw it won’t come back to him but to me,) a GM who would put undo pressure on you to stay longer then you were scheduled. Fuck that place. Nothing made me happier when my situation changed and didn’t need to pick up extra hours. Six hour mark rolled around and I was out. I’d take that time go to the gym, go on a bike ride, go rock climbing, go paddle boarding because I sure as hell enjoyed working on myself more then I ever did at any job. And to work so hard for so little, damn if America isn’t just on large pyramid scheme.
I’m one of those people. If not pointed in a specific direction by someone else I’ll just aimlessly do nothing but kill time for months on end. I have a couple interests, but nothing that could keep me occupied for an extra 40 hours a week.
This isn’t to say I love working, but I don’t hate it either. I’d rather have work than no work, even for the same amount of money.
Want is not the right word there, and it completely changes the message.
Or perhaps it’s the right word, because it completely changes the message in precisely the way they intend.
In older vocabulary, “want” was actually the stronger form of “need”.
Perhaps we’re returning to tradition in more ways than one?
what the fuck is up with all these pansy-ass terms suits keep coming up with? “quiet quitting” and now “soft saving”?
fuck this marshmallow flavoured cyanide bullshit
It’s a way to turn people off of what they really mean.
“Quiet quitting” is just doing your job. Trying to make it seem like breaking your back to help someone profit is the minimum to do unless you want to be branded a quitter.
“Soft saving” is apparently the requirement of working til your dead because no one gets paid enough to…hard save…I guess.
yes i definitely didn’t know that
now go find literally anyone else to explain the obvious to
Ask a question, albeit rhetorical. Get answer that seems to agree with your stance.
Be a dick about it.
You got many friends?
Neither of those terms were developed by suits. They both were popularized in the Gen Z social sphere, namely TikTok, and then well after they went viral and had plenty of adherents, started being picked up in the normal media cycle of regurgitating whatever is happening on social media and seeing what sticks.
They’re both just a rejection of “old” cultural norms, in this case specifically a rejection of “hustle culture” and to a lesser extent the FIRE (i.e. early retirement) movement, both of which had their heyday on the internet many years ago.
And like…this shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. Gen Z is typically much more concerned about mental health (focus on now) than prior generations, has a very doom and gloom outlook for the future (focus on now), and is the first generation to be raised by people who didn’t tell them “just work hard and you’ll be fine eventually” (focus on now). Is it any surprise that they’re less forward looking? What do they have to look forward to? Call it cyanide if you want, but while I don’t necessarily agree with it, it certainly feels like a natural development to me.
did some idiot confuse “worried we will have to work until death” with “wanting to work until death”?
get fucked capitalist class. the minute I can afford not to work I will stop. the problem is you guys fucked the system so hard that it seems that point is so far away, or not attainable at all.
I feel so sorry for the retired boomers on good pensions in their big houses with nothing better to do than wish they were working again
end rant
did some idiot confuse “worried we will have to work until death” with “wanting to work until death”?
Yes, the OP and everyone else slurping up this rage bait. The article does not say they “want to work until death”. It also doesn’t say shit about “capitalism celebrating” anything. This is presenting survey results and generational trends. Guess what, Gen Z is a little different than millennials, and different still from Boomers (though they appear to have some in common with the consumptive, “me generation” that Gen X was broadly painted as). This shouldn’t be revolutionary. They don’t save as much as millennials because millennials lived through multiple rough markets, and entered the workforce during a historic downturn. They care (even) less about work because they are much more focused on mental health. These are super, SUPER broad strokes, but we’re talking about national level surveys. Why everyone is getting their undies in a bunch over this is absurd. No one is saying anything is good or bad. It just is.