If you’re strapped for cash or have a poor credit rating, the offer would sound tempting: upfront cash in return for your future pension payments. But it’s a debt trap, according to a recent expose by The New York Times — a “pension advance” loan charging sky-high interest rates. A Times analysis of these deals [...] [...more]
Conversations about retirement readiness usually focus on portfolios–how much you’re saving, your investment mix, and whether you’ll accumulate assets sufficient to last a lifetime. But those conversations are missing a bigger-picture question about retirement readiness: How are household balance sheets shaping up as families approach retirement? A new study by the AARP Public Policy Institute [...] [...more]
Most Americans have been working to shed credit card debt in the wake of the Great Recession – with one exception: older people. Research by Demos and the AARP Public Policy Institute shows that older Americans took on greater amounts of credit card debt during the Great Recession, while younger households have been shedding it. [...] [...more]
What were the ten most popular stories on retirement in 2010? I checked the traffic data here at RetirementRevised, and–no surprise–the list of most-viewed stories reflect our hard times economy. The most-read stories focused on issues like Social Security benefits, 50+ job-hunting, saving money and improving cash flow. Here are the ten most viewed stories [...] [...more]
A mortgage is a contract. Maybe that’s why Brent White has drawn so much attention in the red-hot national debate about the ethics of strategic default on mortgages. White, a law professor at the University of Arizona, is outspoken on strategic default—the notion that it’s okay for homeowners who are underwater on mortgages to simply [...] [...more]
