The Golden Years, Redux?

Just a few months ago, we reported that a lot of folks worried that they'd be working even after they'd formally "retired." Turns out, many of them underestimated their own nest eggs.

The survey on which that report was based was conducted by the Pew Research Center; the Employee Benefit Research Institute recently did its own Retirement Confidence Survey, with interesting results:

[Graphic courtesy of Employee Benefit News]

■ Almost 1 in 5 believe they'll retire before they hot 60

■ A few more than 1 in five plan to bail out between 60 and 64

■ And just about a quarter of those surveyed think they'll hang it up at 65

The survey results conclude that employees are still playing catch-up with all the retirement plan options available to them. Perhaps more disturbing: about half of them are pretty skeptical about their company sponsored pension plans, yet they're not really taking advantage of all the personal opportunities now extant (IRA's and Roth IRA's, for example).

In a nod to a recurring theme here at IB, most workers currently approaching retirement are ill-prepared for a long term care claim; a lot of them think they're covered, but most probably aren't.

It's not a pretty picture.