As I See It: Retirement Challenges

October 13, 2025 Victor Rozek

If you work long enough, eventually you’ll earn the right not to work. Well, maybe. Retirement has become an increasingly tricky proposition. The three-legged stool designed to support the financial weight of life beyond employment is collapsing. For millions of workers approaching retirement, the support once provided by pensions, personal savings, and social security is no longer reliable. Once thought to be constructed of sturdy oak, the stool now resembles something patched together with balsa wood and duct tape.

For most workers, pensions are either a distant memory or an abstraction. According to figures compiled by everyone’s “favorite” research assistant, the AI bot, only about “30 percent of people age 65 and older collect income from a pension or retirement account.” And, if they worked in the private sector, the annual amount they can expect to receive wouldn’t even pay for a one week hospital stay. “As of 2023, the median benefit for individuals age 65 and older was $11,040 per year.”

Until recently, at least, you could do better if you worked for the government. In 2024, the median Federal Government pension was around $27,687 per year. But, between the DOGE cuts and the government shutdown, Federal employees will be lucky to still have a job.

As for personal savings, the numbers are more impressive but won’t stretch as far as they once did. According to the bot, the median savings at retirement age, typically 65 to 74, is around $200,000, Sounds good, but when a roof replacement can run more than $10,000, a decent vehicle costs $40,000, and a medical emergency can bankrupt you, that money won’t last long, especially if you are burdened by debt.

“Retirees carry substantial debt,” sayeth the bot, “with recent data from 2023 and 2024 showing that a significant majority of adults aged 50 and over have debt, with average amounts varying but often ranging from $95,000 to over $172,000. Common types of debt include mortgages, auto loans, credit card debt, and medical expenses, with high interest rates and stubborn inflation contributing to the financial strain on retirees.”

Meanwhile, Social Security has never been more vulnerable. There is a good possibility that the age for receiving social security benefits will be raised and/or benefits cut. The problem is that the government decided it would be a swell idea to “borrow” money from the surplus funds that the program had been collecting in payroll taxes for decades. And, like any addiction, once they started they didn’t stop until they sucked $2.9 trillion out of the system. To at least appear responsible they replaced that money with Treasury securities which are essentially IOUs they never intended to repay. Now they blame funding shortfalls on the large aging population nearing retirement with fewer younger workers paying into the system. Removing the Social Security payroll tax cap on high earners would go a long way towards ensuring the system’s solvency, but billionaires have become this culture’s sacred cows.

The term “sacred cow” originates in Hinduism, where cows are revered as sacred animals symbolizing life, wealth, and motherhood, and should therefore not be harmed. Billionaires, on the other hand, have come to symbolize greed, excess, and power lust, but are no less untouchable for that.

Ultimately, the decision to retire will hinge on the answers to three questions. First: If you must keep working, can you? If given the option, do you love what you do enough to keep doing it? Not, can you tolerate it, but does it complete you? Does it provide you with purpose and fulfillment? Or, are you willing to keep doing it even though you are burned out, and the very thought of returning to work is soul shriveling?

The question becomes urgent because by retirement age our remaining time on the planet is short, with only a handful of good years left before our bodies inevitably betray us. The answer to how we will spend our unused time at 60 is more acute than the same question asked at age 30 when it seems that we will live forever.

Second: Are you financially solvent or do you need to generate additional income? Since cutting expenses is a close second to generating income, downsizing is a popular pastime among retirees. And, besides reducing cost and maintenance, downsizing can save future beneficiaries one hell of a lot of burdensome work. Those who have gone through the process with their parents can attest – with few exceptions – that household items and the sheer tonnage of a lifetime of accumulation, seemingly so important the day before, have little or no value to anyone else the moment the owners die. Disposal then becomes an epic project visited on survivors.

Perhaps the most astute financial goal prior to retirement is paying off your mortgage – if at all possible. Remaining finances stretch a lot further if you’re only supporting yourself and not your bank. The average monthly mortgage payment ranges from $2,300 to $2,700. Spending down savings to pay the mortgage is a losing proposition. Having that extra money to spend on necessities each month without spending down additional savings can make retirement possible.

The final question involves the state of your health and that of others in your family. It’s no secret that the cost of healthcare is going up. Dramatically. Medicare is being slashed. The 2025 budget cuts mandated by the so-called Big Beautiful Bill will see hospital and physician compensation reduced, and $536 billion in cuts to Medicare over the next nine years. Rural hospitals are predicted to close with over 700 facing financial instability. Likewise, Medicaid cuts will total a staggering $1 trillion over the next decade. Some 15 million people are predicted to lose their health insurance and another 24 million can expect their rates to double.

If you are caring for, or paying for the care of an elderly parent, have a family member on Medicaid, have a partner or a child with a chronic medical condition, or are being treated for one yourself, the government programs designed to support people at their most vulnerable are being dismantled. Any consideration of retirement over the next decade must fully appraise the likelihood of having to cover major medical expenses.

But, assuming you are financially comfortable and brimming with good health, you can stride confidently into retirement with only one final task requiring your attention: How will you fill all the extra time you now have available without becoming an annoyance to the people you live with?

Good luck with that.

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