Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET Retiring on Our Deathbeds by MARGARET DICKSON Are you thinking about retiring? still feeling, accelerated the trend. Do you plan to visit the world's Today, Americans 55 and older most exotic spots or maybe hit each are the fastest growing segment of of the Lower 48 in that RV idling our nation's workforce. Stunningly, patiently in your driveway? Maybe we are expected to make up a full you want to spend every moment you quarter of the civilian labor force by can with those precious grandbabies. 2020! Maybe you just want to put your feet But what does all this mean for up and watch television after years of individual Baby Boomers? working to bring home the bacon. What does it mean for younger After all, these are some of the people, Generations X and Y, who paths our parents, many of them would love to move up into some part of what Tom Brokaw dubbed of the positions we Baby Boomers the "Greatest Generation," dreamed are still occupying? What does this of and took. Why shouldn't we Baby postponement for younger people Boomers do likewise? mean for our economy as a whole? Better think again. For many Boomers, it means we The earliest Boomers, defined will not be basking on a beach in as Americans born between 1946 Florida anytime soon. It means that and 1964, have already turned we will be on the job a while longer 65, and there are literally millions to make up for retirement savings more heading in that direction. But eaten up by economic downturns retirement, at least in the sense and decreasing employer benefits. It prior generations thought of it, is means we must cope with our anger, not happening that way for many disappointment and fears about our Boomers. We may be retiring from situation. Bottom line, it means that one job, but we are also working we Boomers are going to have to do in other capacities, either on a job what we have always done, forge new site or at home on our phones and paths and — in 1960s-speak — go computers. We may be using skills with the flow. honed over a lifetime of work, and And, this Boomer does not think we may find ourselves learning in that is all bad. new and unexpected ways. We may Pushing retirement back is a be starting new businesses based change of plans for many of us, and on those skills or pursuing longit may well come with unexpected held interests. We may just be doing and unwelcome financial pressures. whatever we can to make ends meet Many Baby Boomers are working past retirement age and forging new paths for It will also force us to be creative in in our 60s and beyond, because we figuring out how to go forward in our their sunset years. simply have no other options. senior years. We will have to learn Whatever we may be doing, new skills for today's workplaces and though, the question is fast becoming not "How do you keep yourself busy meet new people, both of which may generate some anxiety but which will in retirement?," but "Where are you working now that you have retired?" also stimulate our minds and maybe even our bodies. There are as many reasons for this as there are "unretired" Baby Intellectual curiosity and flexibility are often seen as characteristics of the Boomers. Most of them are economic as a poll released earlier this month by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research reports. young and adventurous. Consider, though, the liveliest, most interesting It finds that of a whopping 82 percent of Americans 50 and up; 47 percent and happiest seniors you know. Chances are they are intellectually curious, flexible, open to new ideas and adventurous. They are thinking and living believe their retirements will come an average of three years later than like young people. they would like. Boomers more likely to think this way are men, racial Life may well have thrown many Baby Boomers a curve ball as we minorities, people with minor children to support, those making less than approach anticipated retirements, and there will be casualties. But most of $50,000 a year and those who lack health insurance. us will adapt and go forward and change American culture just Historically, Americans have worked into our senior years, but that as our great bulge has done since we began moving through the changed with the advent of Social Security in the 1930s. But Social Security was never intended to be a full retirement income, and the demographic snake in the late 1940s. MARGARET DICKSON, Connumber of seniors still in the workplace began ticking back up in the I, for one, am not all that interested tributing Writer, COMMENTS? 1990s. The Great Recession, which those of us in North Carolina are in watching television anyway. Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. 484-0261 Book Your Banquet & Holiday Parties Early! Family & Business Groups Welcome! Banquet rooms available up to 100 guests 6 OCTOBER 23-29, 2013 1304 Morganton Rd. Mon-Sat: 6am-10pm Sun: 7am-2:30 pm Serving Fayetteville Over 50 Years! WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM