Working a Little Longer – is it Good for You?

The Great Recession blew a hole in many US citizen savings, and their free time wasn’t much fun without cash to visit beautiful places, buy a new car or even purchase a nice clothes or so.

Increasing annual Social Security income by working longer, until at least age 70 will improve financial security more than anything else most people can safely accomplish. Also, getting more people to work later in life could help blunt the impact of the graying population on the nation’s finances. According to Trent Gillies, “Nearly 20 percent of people age 65 plus are still working full or part-time — the highest rate since 1962”.

According to Stanford professor John B. Shoven, “Social Security is a very important, and often the most important, source of retirement income for 85 percent of the people in the United States, and that’s a conservative estimate”. The longer a person works, the longer Social Security is deferred, which means a higher benefit check.

There are a number of factors are keeping older US citizens in the workforce. According to one recent study, a $1 million would allow the average retired person in Mississippi to live for 25 years and six months, while $1 million only gets you 13 years and one month of retirement to live in Hawaii. If you’re approaching retirement with inadequate savings, there are several ways you can compensate to avoid depleting your nest egg prematurely. With some planning and discipline, you can set yourself up for a more enjoyable and more financially secure retirement. Another important factor is that many people find it difficult to manage life transitions, such as getting married or divorced, getting or losing a job, moving or facing a major health problem.

Most people really need Social Security to survive, and some of them decide not to fully retire because they enjoy their jobs or just want to stay active and alert, but many of them will find that working longer is not very appealing or even possible due to health problems. Work can be stressful, take time away from exercise, and promote bad habits like excessive alcohol consumption. Rather than retire, some older workers switch from traditional jobs to self-employment.

Working longer, even if it is an easy job, can have serious repercussions for the workers physical and mental health and may even end up hurting productivity in the long run, but the fact that older and more experienced workers are staying on the job longer is a good thing for the US economy.