Boomer Retirements Least Affected By Recession?

October 25, 2009 | By Kim Walker

According to a recent survey in the US,while hurt by the financial crisis, boomers appear to be least affected.

The report by By Age Wave titled: Retirement at the TippingPoint: New Fears, New Hopes, and a New Purpose for Retirement can be downloaded here.

Some interesting findings. Bear in mind, this is USA focussed:

• Boomers think it will take 6.3 years to recover their losses from the crisis. This compares to 7.5 Gen X, 8 years Millenials. The population total average of 7 years.
• Today, the biggest financial worry among the age 55+ population is being unable to afford uninsured medical expenses during retirement. In fact, older Americans are 2.5 times as likely to say they are worried about paying for uninsured medical expenses in retirement as they are about a lack of personal savings.
• On average, pre-retirees say they now intend to postpone their retirement by 4.2 years, triggered by today’s economic crisis. The older groups; Boomers (3.6 years) and Silent generation (1.9 years) seem less concerned.

While on the subject, here’s a more recent press article from the UK suggesting that OVER-50S SHOW CONFIDENCE IN STOCK MARKET.

Of course, much depends on relative wealth but for the average punter, our view is that while older people have less time to recover lost wealth, they are going to be hard to convince to risk their money again.