Stanford Center on Longevity

5/21/2013 – Gen Xers may never be able to retire

admin — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:38:16 +0000

Typical Generation Xers now in their late 30s to late 40s saw their net worth drop by a larger proportion than older Americans during the financial crisis and came out of it less prepared for retirement than the post-World War II boomer generation, according to a new study.

Read the full article at MarketWatch.

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:52:44 +0000

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5/20/2013 – Growing Old Alone?

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:42:47 +0000

Who will care for you when you get old? If that’s a scary or uncomfortable question, you are in good company. Most people don’t want to think about their long-term care needs and when they do, they tend to have major misperceptions of what it costs and what the government will pay for.

Read the full article at Huffington Post.

5/20/2013 – In retirement, can more debt be wise?

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:39:14 +0000

Conventional wisdom says homeowners should pay off their home loans before retirement. But for some affluent seniors, a mortgage may be a better financial decision.

Read the full article at MarketWatch.

5/20/2013 – Senior poverty is much worse than you think

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:36:28 +0000

One frequent knock on the official poverty rate is that it generally excluded income from some government programs like food stamps and the Earned Income Tax Credit, but included income from others, like Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Social Security. That means people who, if those benefits were treated as cash, wouldn’t be counted as impoverished, still get counted as such.

It’s a fair enough point, and the Census Bureau responded by creating a Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) that takes such programs into account and, perhaps more importantly, breaks down the way that each government program affects the poverty rate. That measure showed that the government program that keeps the most people out of poverty is Social Security. In 2011, the SPM found a poverty rate of 16.1 percent. Without Social Security, that would have been 24.4 percent.

Read the full article at The Washington Post.

5/20/2013 – Income, Age Key Factors in Retirement Funding Expectations (Gallup)

borges — Mon, 20 May 2013 17:09:32 +0000

Nonretired Americans’ expectations about which sources they will rely on to fund their retirement differ significantly by their annual household income. Upper-income nonretirees are much more likely to say investments, such as a 401(k), IRA and other retirement savings accounts or individual stock investments, and work-sponsored pension plans will be major sources of their retirement income. In contrast, lower-income respondents are more likely to say Social Security and part-time work will be major sources.

Read the full article at Gallup.

5/20/2013 – At risk for chronic hepatitis B?

admin — Mon, 20 May 2013 16:34:06 +0000

According to the World Health Organization, chronic hepatitis B affects approximately 240 million people worldwide and 1.2 million in the U.S. The good news is that there is a quick, one-time blood test to determine whether you have the disease and have the antibody that protects against getting it, and there is also a safe vaccine to prevent future hepatitis B infection. BeWell spoke with Dr. Samuel So, MD, the Lui Hac Minh Professor of Surgery at the Stanford School of Medicine and Center on Longevity faculty affiliate, to learn more.

5/19/2013 – Helper Robots Are Steered, Tentatively, to Care for the Aging

admin — Sun, 19 May 2013 20:19:14 +0000

“There are two trends that are going in opposite directions. One is the increasing number of elderly people, and the other is the decline in the number of people to take care of them,” said Jim Osborn, a roboticist and executive director of the Robotics Institute’s Quality of Life Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. “Part of the view we’ve already espoused is that robots will start to fill in those gaps.”

Read the full article at The New York Times.

5/17/2013 – Health care in retirement probably costs more than you think (Washington Post)

borges — Sun, 19 May 2013 20:15:37 +0000

When it comes to thinking about how much money we all need to retire comfortably, it gives us a headache. I just need to say that upfront before telling you the latest news, which is sure to scare you even more about retirement.

You probably know that health care is likely to be among your largest expenses. But how much?

Read the full article at the Washington Post.

5/19/2013 – Sleep Apnea in Seniors Tied to Alzheimer’s in Study

admin — Sun, 19 May 2013 17:32:45 +0000

Sleep apnea, the condition that robs sufferers of deep sleep by endlessly and subconsciously waking them up, becomes more common as people age. Now, a small new study raises the possibility that it may somehow cause — or be caused by — Alzheimer’s disease.

Read the full article at U.S. News and World Report.