For retirement investors, good news has been hard to find lately. But here’s a small silver lining for the dark clouds hanging over the market: There’s never been a better time to convert an IRA to a Roth account.If you’ve been thinking of converting some or all of your IRA assets to a Roth, this [...] [read full article…]
Hey, all you laid-off, middle-aged bankers, accountants, programmers, marketers and other well-trained corporate types out there–listen up: Ever thought about working at a not-for profit?The business world is crumbling all around us, but non-profits have been growing faster than either the business or government sector–and they’re facing a shortage of talent. Best of all, the [...] [read full article…]
Barack Obama’s hair turned a little gray during his 20-month quest for the presidency but he’s hardly the only one showing some age. President-elect Obama will lead a country that is aging rapidly as the huge baby boomer generation heads toward retirement. By the year 2030, there will be 72 million Americans over age 65–about [...] [read full article…]
Here’s some late-breaking news: John McCain and Barack Obama agree on something. I stumbled across this startling information while reporting on a proposal making the rounds in Washington aimed at creating new retirement saving options for lower-income Americans. Called the Automatic IRA, it could keep millions of Americans out of poverty in old age. It gets at [...] [read full article…]
No one I know who’s working in these hard times expects a big cost-of-living raise next year. But if you receive Social Security, you’re about to get one. The Social Security Administration recently announced that the annual cost-of-living (COLA) adjustment for 2009 will be 5.8 percent–the largest since 1982. That might seem odd in a tanking [...] [read full article…]
I believe firmly that retirement savers need to hang on tight through the stomach-churning roller coaster of a stock market we’re all riding. Unless you think we’re witnessing the end of the free enterprise system as we know it–and I don’t–selling in a panic is the worst mistake you can make in this bear [...] [read full article…]
Finding a job is challenging for anyone in tough economic times but it’s harder if you’re over age 50. It’s illegal for employers to discriminate based on age, but any older job-seeker will tell you it happens every day. That reality is colliding with the intent of baby boomers, most of whom hope—and need—to keep working [...] [read full article…]
At age 71, Bob Schieffer of CBS News isn’t the oldest journalist moderating a presidential debate this election season. Jim Lehrer of PBS is 74. Still, Schieffer may have a more-than-passing interest in issues related to retirement and aging—and I hope you do, too. The challenges facing the next president include the long-term solvency of Social [...] [read full article…]
If you’ve been distracted lately by lipstick, bridges to nowhere and the ongoing financial meltdown on Wall Street, you might have missed one of this election season’s most significant events. On the seventh anniversary of 9/11, Barack Obama and John McCain participated in a presidential forum on national service. The forum was part of a Service [...] [read full article…]
What should I do now? It’s a natural question for retirement investors watching the unfolding Wall Street financial crisis and worrying about their portfolios. For most retirement investors, the best answer is: Do nothing. The collapse of venerable companies like Lehman Brothers and A.I.G. is frightening indeed. But this isn’t the time for the small investor [...] [read full article…]
RetirementRevised.com is the companion website of Retire Smart, a column written by Mark Miller that appears in more than 30 newspapers each week. For millions of Baby Boomers, retirement is an opportunity for reinvention, rather than taking it easy. Mark is helping write the playbook for the new career and personal pursuits of a generation.
