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…]
Here’s a Bush nightmare you can kiss goodbye in the wake of Tuesday’s election: privatization of Social Security. More on my page at HuffPost. [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…]
I’ve just signed on as a contributor to one of my favorite news websites, The Huffington Post. Founded by author and nationally syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington, HuffPost is one of the fastest-growing sites on the web. HuffPost is best known for political and media coverage, but the site also features coverage of business, lifestyle [...] [read full article…]
New research from Fidelity Investments confirms that a majority of Americans close to retirement age don’t have a clue when it comes to their Social Security benefits. Nearly half (45 percent) of 61-year-olds plan to file for benefits when they become eligible at 62, despite the actuarial reality that most will do much better waiting [...] [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…]
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert focuses today on how foreclosures are impacting older Americans. Herbert cites a recent AARP Public Policy research report that breaks new ground in quantifying mortgage delinquencies by age group. The study concludes that Americans over age 50 represented 28 percent of all mortgage delinquencies and foreclosures at the end [...] [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…]
The Social Security Administration announced this morning that benefits payments will rise 5.8 percent next year as a result of the annual cost-of-living (COLA) adjustment. That’s the biggest increase since 1982, and more than double last year’s increase. The Social Security Administration bases the COLA each year on third quarter inflation. More on this story [...] [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.
