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Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
How longevity is changing our retirement outlook: Author Q&A
At the recent annual conference of the American Society on Aging, Ken Dychtwald, a psychologist and gerontologist, spoke about what has pushed him for roughly five decades: finding ways to successfully navigate longer life spans, which was the topic of his provocative keynote address, 'The Longevity Revolution: Triumph or Tragedy?' One of history's greatest accomplishments — increasing longevity — could turn out to be one of the world's biggest challenges, said Dychtwald, a bestselling author of 19 books including 'Radical Curiosity: My Life on the Age Wave.' I caught up with Dychtwald after his talk to learn more (edited excerpts): Kerry Hannon: What's the impact of longer lifespans for retirees today? Ken Dychtwald: Let's set the stage in terms of the grand phenomenon of longevity because most people are inclined to think, well, I'm living a little bit longer than my grandparents did. What I like to remind people is that throughout 99% of human history, the average life expectancy worldwide was under 18. Sure, there were some 40- and 60- and 70-year-olds, but there were very few. Life was short, you know, brutish, as we've heard. And most people didn't contemplate the idea that there would be a retirement. Then, in the early part of the 20th century, we had breakthroughs in penicillin, antibiotics, public health, and surgical procedures. People began to take better care of their own well-being. Learn more: A step-by-step guide to retirement planning More people are now expecting that they're going to live to 80 or 90 or even more years. In fact, the average life expectancy in America is now 78. But that's a little misleading because if you look at life expectancy at 65, it's about 20 more years. That's a lot of time. So what does that mean in practical terms? This impacts retirement in three ways. Gen Xers and boomers are thinking of retirement as a whole new chapter in life. Our parents and our grandparents were inclined to think of it as a wind-down. You had lived your life. You'd have a few years to socialize, collect your thoughts, watch some TV, take a nice trip or two, and then you'd expire. People are envisioning the idea that post-work years are becoming longer and offering more possibilities than they ever did before. By subscribing, you are agreeing to Yahoo's Terms and Privacy Policy The second thing is, a lot of people are scratching their heads and saying, 'Yikes, I don't know if I can afford that 20 years of life.' That's reasonable. Unless you're very wealthy, living another 20 years after your earning years, relying on government safety nets or relying on savings may not go the distance. People are terrified of the idea of becoming a burden on their family or running out of money. What's a solution? One solution is to shorten your retirement by working longer. Warren Buffett just announced that he's going to retire, but he'll be 93. We have a president who's about to go into his ninth decade of life. The Rolling Stones are out on tour in their 80s. We're seeing examples of people who are working and they enjoy it. They might be doing the same thing they used to do, or maybe even reinventing themselves and trying something new. The third thing we're seeing is that people are seeking a new purpose. There's a lot of people thinking, I've got more wisdom, I've got more free time. How can I give back? How can I help not only my family, but my community? Maybe I could volunteer, maybe I could work pro bono. We need to create an elder corps to harness the extraordinary talents and wisdom and abilities and, frankly, availability of a new generation of long-lived men and women. Let's discuss what you mean by health span and lifespan. What are people missing there? Health span is a relatively new concept. It's the idea of how many years do you have where you're relatively fit and healthy and energetic and vital and can do the things you want to do. What we see in the United States is that people have about 12 years between the end of their vital health span and the end of their life. That means that there's a lot of pain and suffering and illness and disease and cost. The average couple will spend, from retirement day to the end of their lives, $472,000 for out-of-pocket health and long-term care costs. So not only is not matching your health span to your lifespan truly unpleasant, but it's also very expensive — and it can really put a dent in your dreams of a wonderful retirement. One of your big concerns about longevity is the rise in elder poverty, particularly for single women. Can you elaborate? This requires a willingness to take off the blinders and look at what's really going on. The boomers have lived a life living for today. Thanks to credit cards and easy access to debt, there's a lot of members of this generation that are living month to month. That's fine as long as you're still earning. But when you go into the stage of life where you're retired or ill, or you're caring for a loved one, you might run out of money. I really worry about this. There are tens and tens of millions of people approaching retirement who could be heading there if there was a pullback of benefits. We could be heading into a new era of elder poverty. That's particularly problematic for women for a couple of key reasons. First of all, women live about five years longer than men. A woman who is married to a man, who is typically older than she is, will often care for the man at the end of his life. That requires expenses, or the woman has to step out of her job, or misses career elevations because of being a caregiver. Then the man passes away and she's going to live another five or 10 years. Will she have enough money? Will she have saved enough? That said, there are segments of women who have either earned a lot or they've inherited a lot, or their spouses have died and now they own the house. So it's the tale of two does what matters to us change as we age? When you're 20 or 30 or 40, you think about certain things: Will I fall in love? Will I be able to buy a house? Will I have a job that I like? But, boy, you pass your 50th and 60th birthday and your greatest fears become your health or the health of somebody you love. The biggest worry that people have is Alzheimer's and losing their ability to think and function. Second, even modestly wealthy people are worried about running out of money. There's this terrible fear that something could happen, or the markets could crash. That swirls around in people's minds continually. And it's not that people are seeking to be super wealthy, it's just they want to know that they're going to be financially secure. Financial education ought to be taught in high schools because so many of us grow up and, ultimately, are responsible for our own financial planning. But no one ever taught us the basics. There are a lot of people reaching their 50s or 60s and coming to terms for the first time with what all these costs are and how to manage them. Ken, you were a producer for the documentary, 'Aging in America: Survive or Thrive' airing on PBS stations throughout May and streaming. I found it dark and fascinating. Can you spell out why that's so? Filmmaker Neil Steinberg used the Pulitzer-prize winning book "Why Survive? Being Old in America," written by the pioneering gerontologist Dr. Robert Butler 50 years ago, to look at where things stand today for older Americans. At the time Butler wrote "Why Survive?" there were roughly 23 million Americans over age 65. Now there are more than 55 million, of whom over 17 million are economically insecure. Butler realized that we were living in a country that did not regard older people with much respect. The average physician had no training whatsoever in caring for older people — what's called geriatrics. There was a discomfort with older people and discomfort with one's own aging process. Dr. Butler coined the term 'ageism' to describe discrimination against older adults. Bob's book was meant to shine a light on the dark recesses of what it is to grow old in America and ask some deep and challenging questions about nursing homes and families and prejudices and discrimination. He was the first person in the modern era to seriously and reflectively try to identify what we need to be doing as a society to not only give more respect and care for older people, but create a better world for all of us in which to grow old. Not enough has changed: 96% of all the medical schools in America require, in order to graduate, that you take a rotation in pediatrics. Only 10% require any rotation or any course in geriatrics, which is insane. He was a crusader for respecting and appreciating the enormous contributions that have been made to allow us to live longer lives. But he really wanted people to live longer with health, and I think he'd be troubled to see how poorly we're doing at that. Kerry Hannon is a Senior Columnist at Yahoo Finance. She is a career and retirement strategist and the author of 14 books, including the forthcoming "Retirement Bites: A Gen X Guide to Securing Your Financial Future," "In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in the New World of Work" and "Never Too Old to Get Rich." Follow her on Bluesky. Sign up for the Mind Your Money newsletter Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
When it comes to Social Security and Medicare, this is what the nation's top experts on aging worry about
At the most recent annual conference of the American Society on Aging, the topic on the minds of the nation's leading experts on aging was the future of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the current political environment. Their insights, which are vitally important to anyone in or near retirement, mostly ranged from dour to downright bleak. 'We are the most privileged': My husband and I are tired of paying for our friends. How do we get them to pay their way? Stock market's rapid rebound from tariff-inspired rout stuns Wall Street. But there were signs this would happen. Warren Buffett proves, once again, why he's the best If you read April's jobs report, you won't be surprised by the No. 1 'best job' in America My eldest son refused to share his father's $500K inheritance with his siblings. Should I cut him off? 'This is nothing like anyone's ever seen before,' said Amy Gotwals, chief of public policy and external affairs at USAging (formerly the National Association of Area Agencies on Aging). 'There's an incredible amount of disruption.' The anxiety-filled On Aging conference came near the end of President Donald Trump's first 100 days back in the White House, a period that has featured dramatic changes, proposals and staffing cutbacks for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — programs that provide benefits primarily to older Americans. Many of those actions have been decided on and carried out by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. 'For the first time in a long time, Congress is looking to cut some of those mandatory programs,' said Gotwals. Read: How bad have 10 weeks of stock-market volatility been for your retirement fund? Maybe not as bad as you think. There was a sliver of good news about Social Security, which turns 90 in August: None of the experts I heard from believe benefits will be cut any time soon for current beneficiaries or people close to claiming Social Security. Nor did they think the president and Congress will raise the full retirement age from the current 67. But they agreed that changes to Social Security will be needed at some point before 2033, when the program's trust fund is projected to be depleted. Read: Opinion: A flat $1,660 monthly Social Security benefit for everyone? It's one proposed CBO remedy. Although Trump has vowed to protect Social Security, the conference analysts were outraged by the efforts of DOGE to cut the Social Security workforce by roughly 12% and to close or merge offices. About 40 field offices have lost at least 25% of their staff, and others have seen even larger workforce reductions, according to NPR. 'If this is protecting the program, what does it look like when they're not protecting a program?' asked National Council on Aging Chief Executive Ramsey Alwin. These and likely future cutbacks to customer service, the experts said, will pose worsening problems for people who need assistance from the Social Security Administration or who are just looking to receive benefits they're due. 'Now some people have to drive five or six hours to go to a Social Security office, and you need an appointment,' said Ryann Hill, founder and CEO of Indigo Hill Strategies, a government affairs, public policy and lobbying firm. 'There has already been a longstanding customer-service crisis at Social Security, following decades of underfunding of its operating budget,' said Rebecca Vallas, CEO of the National Academy of Social Insurance, an organization made up of experts on social insurance. Average call wait times at the Social Security Administration have more than doubled since August. That's happening as the number of calls has soared — from 6.5 million in November 2024 to 10.4 million in March. Before Trump began his second term, the average Social Security wait time for callers was an hour. Now it's an hour and 39 minutes. My check of the Social Security Administration's website on the morning of April 29 found there were 4,349 people on hold and 12,919 waiting for callbacks. Only 39% of callers are now able to reach a representative, down from 71% in May 2024. Wait times are typically shorter in the morning, later in the week and later in the month, the site advises. In mid-April, the Social Security Administration launched restrictions on what kind of help people can receive from the agency over the phone. The reason, officials say, is to crack down on fraud by people calling to apply for benefits. There's now a new phone verification system, although the administration hasn't offered many details. 'There's a lot of confusion about the antifraud verification,' Vallas said. And if the DOGE team winds up incorrectly putting your name into Social Security's 'death master file,' prepare for trouble. Landing on that list could harm your ability to get credit, Vallas said, because the Social Security Administration sends the names on its deceased list to consumer credit-reporting agencies. Another Trump administration change that's roiling advocates for older people is its rollback of President Joe Biden's clawback rules for people who received overpayments of their monthly Social Security benefits. Biden capped the clawbacks at 10% of benefits per month. The Trump administration initially said it would withhold 100% of benefits until the amount is repaid, but it then backed off and switched to 50% withholding, effective April 25. The experts at the OnAging conference were generally less concerned about big potential changes to Medicare than to Medicaid. 'Medicare is much more sacrosanct than Medicaid in many ways,' said David Lipschutz, co-director of the Center for Medicare Advocacy. Lipschutz shared the comforting news that the Congressional Budget Office now says Medicare's Hospital Insurance Trust Fund won't be depleted until 2052 — 17 years later than it predicted a year ago. When it comes to Medicare, the chief immediate worry among experts concerns the nation's State Health Insurance Assistance Program, known as SHIP. SHIP provides free, nonpartisan assistance to state residents, explaining how Medicare works, the differences between traditional Medicare and private insurers' Medicare Advantage plans, Part D prescription-drug plans, Medigap policies, how to appeal Medicare denials and who qualifies for Medicare subsidy programs. SHIP isn't an expensive government program, relatively speaking: It has an annual budget of $55 million. But it was part of the Administration on Community Living, a federal agency the Trump administration is eliminating. Pieces of ACL are moving to three other agencies, but the administration hasn't yet said what the future holds for the SHIP program. 'We need people to help explain how Medicare works and to find the best programs for people,' said Gotwals. Unlike SHIP staffers, agents and brokers get paid by Medicare Advantage insurers and can sell plans that are in their own interest rather than the best interests of beneficiaries. Gotwals said a leaked draft budget from DOGE calls for eliminating federal funds for SHIP. If that happens, SHIP would only continue through contributions from states and community-based organizations. As of now, experts think SHIP will keep running through the upcoming Medicare enrollment period from Oct. 15 to Dec. 7, 2025. Beyond that, however, is anyone's guess. The Medicare experts also said the Trump administration is very supportive of Medicare Advantage plans, which now have more members than traditional Medicare. In early April, the administration announced a higher-than-expected payment increase of 5.03% to Medicare Advantage plans for 2026. Trump, they noted, also halted Biden administration restrictions on the marketing of Medicare Advantage plans. 'We expect less emphasis on consumer protection in this administration,' Lipschutz said. He also told On Aging attendees that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services may be working on proposals to make Medicare Advantage the default enrollment choice. Currently, traditional Medicare is the default. Medicaid, the federal-state health program for low-income Americans, which accounts for 12% of federal spending, is most likely to see quick and possibly devastating changes, the conference speakers said. 'We are in a critical moment now for the future of the Medicaid program,' said Lipschutz. 'This is crunch time.' If Medicaid funding is reduced significantly — we're likely to know how much by Memorial Day — people in long-term care and their family members could face serious financial challenges. That's because Medicaid, unlike Medicare, covers some expenses for nursing homes, assisted-living care and home care. Roughly half the money spent on long-term services and support is provided by Medicaid. The budget resolution passed recently by Republicans in Congress instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee to cut spending by $880 billion over 10 years, and Medicaid looks like a target to achieve that goal. 'The Congressional Budget Office says it's impossible for the Trump administration and Congress to reach its spending targets without deep cuts to Medicaid,' said Lipschutz. He believes home- and community-based long-term-care services paid for by Medicaid are especially at risk. Read: $880 billion in Medicaid cuts would be 'devastating' for nursing homes and their residents Rural health clinics could also close, because they receive significant funds from Medicaid. Congress might cut funding to states that expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act, too. Dental care will also likely take a hit, since it is often cut when money is tight. Reflecting the mood of the conference, American Society on Aging President and CEO Leanne Clark-Shirley told the audience: 'What felt safe and secure before now feels under threat. The landscape of public funding for aging services, research and health initiatives is changing by the day — sometimes by the hour.' 'In their last days, our parents changed their will': They left me $250,000, but gave my sister $1 million. What should I do? The S&P 500 is headed for its longest winning streak in more than 20 years. That doesn't mean the worst is over for stocks. 'Retirement is within my grasp': I'm 57, my 401(k) is dropping and I'm feeling anxious about a recession. What can I do? 'She's kept him afloat': I'm 78 and leaving my daughter, 41, my life savings, but her partner is a mooch. How can I protect her? 'Money means nothing to my wealthy clients': My coworkers step on each other to get ahead. How do I create a nontoxic culture at work?
