America needs a "Longevity Risk Awareness Month"

Our Nation needs a “Longevity Risk Awareness Month”

It’s no surprise that people are beginning to live longer, but what may come as a surprise, is the substantial adverse effects this trend will inevitably have on our middle-class and the U.S. economy as a whole. People are largely oblivious to the risk of outliving their assets, because nobody is talking to them about it. Living longer, means spending more years in retirement and spending more years in retirement requires a larger nest egg. Unfortunately our middle-class is grossly underfunded, which only increases the probability of outliving their assets.

If we as a nation fail to adequately educate our “baby boomers” about the risk of outliving their assets and provide viable solutions for ensuring their financial stability, a great percentage of this vast senior population will become unable to financially support themselves and turn to our government for help. Given the poor current status of our Social Security System, Medicare and state pension plans, I’m not sure how much help our government would actually be, if at all.

I would like you to consider following:
• According to a recent study conducted by Ernst & Young on behalf of Americans for Secure Retirement, middle-income Americans entering retirement will have to reduce their standard of living by an average of 24 percent to minimize the likelihood of outliving their financial assets.
• More than 10,000 baby boomers will reach the retirement age of 65 every day
for the next 19 years.
• More than 1.5 million “baby boomers” sign up for Medicare each year.
• The International Monetary Fund just released a report warning countries about the risk of underestimating the longevity of their populations.
• Nearly half of those aged 45-70 have no financial plans in place to protect themselves against outliving their assets according to a new survey from the Society of Actuaries.

Please help support our cause for a national “Longevity Risk Awareness Month”.

Thank you,
Jeramy Poole
Jeramyp@longevityinsight.com