Why work has failed us: Because no one can afford to retire anymore • Hacker News Board

Re: Why work has failed us: Because no one can afford to retire anymore

#111

Post by Johnythree » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 3:08 AM UTC

yardie wrote: post #105

1stranger wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meaning you can't retire abroad and receive your pension? How many months out of year do you have to reside in Australia?

If you’re out longer than a few months they cut your payout severely. Some friends sailing with us had to fly back every few months and check in. So any pensioners planning to retire to SE Asia because of the lower cost of living are screwed.

This is incorrect. If you are overseas more that a few months, some of the extra's are cut, but not the basic amount.

Lots of Australian retirees live in Asia.

It's possible your friends had not lived in Australia long enough to fully qualify.

Re: Why work has failed us: Because no one can afford to retire anymore

#112

Post by jlelonm » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 3:12 AM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #38

Work hasn't failed us. Consumerism has. Stop buying brands. Stop buying Starbucks. Stop eating out. Stop buying the newest phone. Don't buy a fancy Macbook if you don't have a use case for one. Stop buying too much car. Stop trading resources for lifestyle. A 25 year old who only puts $300 into a reasonable retirement fund each month will have over $1M at retirement age.

What's a reasonable retirement fund to you? (asking out of ignorance, not sarcasm or anything)

Re: Why work has failed us: Because no one can afford to retire anymore

#113

Post by dsnuh » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 3:13 AM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #53

russellbeattie wrote: post #24

My Vanguard 401k home page has this helpful notice in the dead center of the page: "We think you need $7,840 more per month." Sure... That makes two of us. I guess it's extrapolating my current salary out and how much I'll need to save to live with the same income after I retire. That's not going to happen. Here's a helpful article to see how far behind you are in your retirement: https://smartasset.com/retirement/av…

There's no way that number is correct. You're only allowed to save $18,500 in your 401(k) for 2018. You'd hit that number in less than 3 months. I'm guessing that you must be closer to retirement age right now and probably haven't saved enough or had investments with low returns (no personal judgement here, shit happens). Thus the system is predicting how much "catching up" you need to do and not taking various param…

I wonder if it is saying that he should be maxing it out each year, and maybe he hasn't contributed this year, meaning he would need to contribute that much in the next two to three months in order to meet the goal for 2018? I dunno. Like you said, that seems like it can't be right.

Re: Why work has failed us: Because no one can afford to retire anymore

#114

Post by DoreenMichele » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 3:14 AM UTC

microtherion wrote: post #110

DoreenMichele wrote: post #44

If you turn 65 in 2040 or 2050 or 2060 Some historical perspective: My understanding is that when Social Security was created, the average life expectancy was 67. So offering it for people age 65 was intended as providing for people in extreme old age who had probably worked physically hard their entire lives and were pretty beat up. I'm not saying we don't have genuine problems here, but this article is bellyaching…

Some historical perspective: My understanding is that when Social Security was created, the average life expectancy was 67. While this is true, I think it's a misleading statistic. The relevant figure, it seems to me, is not life expectancy at birth, but life expectancy at age 65 (because the latter determines social security outlay). In the 1930s, a 65 year old could expect to live for about 12 more years, while in…

I will note that my framing comes directly from something I saw somewhere. So my understanding is that it was intended a certain way.

There's a great book called How to lie with statistics. It makes a lot of excellent points about how framing the same data differently can support different conclusions.

So, some thoughts:

Law makers who passed it may not have realized the average 65 year old would live another 12 years. They may have only known average life expectancy was 67.

Six years longer may not sound like much, but it's 50 percent longer. That can have significant repercussions.

Re: Why work has failed us: Because no one can afford to retire anymore

#115

Post by dawhizkid » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 3:22 AM UTC

mikestew wrote: post #15

grecy wrote: post #2

In Australia the official retirement age when you can start to receive a pension (or access your own retirement money without penalties) was recently moved up to 67. The new Prime Minister just announced he won't raise it to 70, which was on the table. I think it's clear that's just a sign of things to come.

or access your own retirement money without penalties My own ?! Holy crap, and I'm bitchin' here in the U. S. because I can't touch the 401K until 59.5.

you can, you just pay a 10% penalty. If you really need it, it's not the end of the world. A decent employer match would probably subsidize the penalty for most people.

Re: Why work has failed us: Because no one can afford to retire anymore

#116

Post by mmirate » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 3:26 AM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #92

maerF0x0 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 75% is far above what I or any reasonable person would recommend to be the maximum portion of salary that should be spent on housing. Two rules of thumb i've heard are: 1) Do not mortgage more than 4x your annual salary (household if double income) . 2) Do not pay more than 20x annual rent for a place (eg, $50k annualized rent == $1M house) . Another way to rephrase an ignorance problem is a lack of education probl…

> on the other hand those tasked with educating us have failed us (parents, school system) Is the problem lack of education, or is it that humans also have emotions to contend with? If, hypothetically, someone with a $100k income spends $75k on rent, they are left with $25k to spend elsewhere. If another location allows you to rent a place for $10k, that means that a $35k income would also leave you with $25k to spen…

The central problem there is that we even care about gross income rather than net income minus housing expenses.

> Is the problem lack of education, or is it that humans also have emotions to contend with?

On second thought, it is indeed good that there is selection pressure against the weaker-minded.

Re: Why work has failed us: Because no one can afford to retire anymore

#117

Post by amanaplanacanal » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 4:39 AM UTC

randomdata wrote: post #84

ryandrake wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our parents/grandparents didnt have videogame consoles, laptops, phones, coffee besides cheap store drip, meals out more than 1x per month, tattoos, anything from a spa etc. They also didn’t have six figure student loan debt, and their housing costs were not 50-75% of their salary. Video games and cell phones are small potatoes—-not what is keeping the current generation financially insecure, but they are visible “…

> and their housing costs were not 50-75% of their salary But our grandparents did predominately live in rural areas. You can still live quite affordably in rural areas now. Most people just aren't happy with that lifestyle anymore. Additionally, the majority of our grandparents didn't own their homes. If the majority of us were okay with renting like our grandparents were, you wouldn't see the irrational behaviour o…

The opportunities to make a living in rural areas aren't really there any more. Unless you mean to move to a rural area when you retire.

Re: Why work has failed us: Because no one can afford to retire anymore

#118

Post by TheCoelacanth » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 5:14 AM UTC

naveen99 wrote: post #78

sharkmerry wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seems like you created a strawman you created and are arguing against that. >> and know that the inability to save for the vast majority of people is just bullshit. Its an inability to sacrifice and “suffer” in a consumerist society. How do you know this? median income (50th %) in US is 37k before taxes. The average rent is 1k, so 33% of pretax is going to housing but its definitely lazy people? >> I’ve been so poor…

Where are you getting 37k ? First hit on google for usa median income is 59k https://amp.businessinsider.com/us-census-median-income-2017...

It depends exactly what you are measuring the income for. 59k is per household while the median per person 15 or older is about 31k[1]. Median wage for full-time workers is about 45k[2]. Not sure where they are getting 37k from. Maybe income per person for some narrower age range.

[1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N

[2] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf

Re: Why work has failed us: Because no one can afford to retire anymore

#119

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 5:14 AM UTC

naveen99 wrote: post #78

sharkmerry wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

seems like you created a strawman you created and are arguing against that. >> and know that the inability to save for the vast majority of people is just bullshit. Its an inability to sacrifice and “suffer” in a consumerist society. How do you know this? median income (50th %) in US is 37k before taxes. The average rent is 1k, so 33% of pretax is going to housing but its definitely lazy people? >> I’ve been so poor…

Where are you getting 37k ? First hit on google for usa median income is 59k https://amp.businessinsider.com/us-census-median-income-2017...

[deleted]

Re: Why work has failed us: Because no one can afford to retire anymore

#120

Post by arvinsim » Fri, Sep 07, 2018, 8:02 AM UTC

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #81

kajecounterhack wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they got a degree that doesn't lead to gainful employment due to lack of research before choosing a major, or they let themselves be bullshitted by some university's marketing and wayyyyy overpaid for their degree. Correct. But this happens because not everyone is privileged enough to get good advice. The vast majority of 18 year olds know nothing, they've seen none of the world, and can only rely on the little kno…

> The vast majority of 18 year olds know nothing, they've seen none of the world, and can only rely on the little knowledge they've acquired up to that point in their life. Which is why IMO, we should stop pushing 18 year olds into college. Let them work a full-time job somewhere and live outside of their parents' place for a few years go get a feel for the real world. > society's advice has been it's "go to college,…

> Which is why IMO, we should stop pushing 18 year olds into college. Let them work a full-time job somewhere and live outside of their parents' place for a few years go get a feel for the real world.

The sad thing is that college degrees are practically a minimum requirement for most jobs. So in order for your suggestion to work, employers need to be convinced to accept people with no degrees.