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Reinventing Retirement Newsletter
Community activist and consummate volunteer, Connie Bass, began her working life in a family business, the Eaves Costume Company on 46th Street in New York City. After moving to Stuart, Florida, in the late 80’s, she found plenty of ways to direct her energy into her new community. Today, she does programming and public relations for all of Martin County’s six branch libraries. (click or copy/paste) Arline Oberst met Chicken Soup series co-author Jack Canfield in 1993 at a seminar on facilitating skills in California and the rest, as they say, is history. Dissatisfied with the image of volunteering in the media and knowing it to be different after decades of community service, she took the idea of Chicken for the Volunteer’s Soul to Canfield in 1997. www.2young2retire.com/arlineoberst.htm Get your peers to volunteer. This organization is seeking volunteers 55 and older: www.volunteerfriends.org/ 1-800-424-8867 The possibility of Social Security going belly-up is pushing everyone’s hot button these days. Exaggerated scare-mongering aside, it’s the issue that unites us across the generations, and so it should. Conversations about the future of work and workers are important and we thank all of you for your thoughtful messages and thumbs up feedback to the Open Letter to Alan Greenspan. The special edition of Reinventing Retirement News (February 27) earned us perhaps the largest response we have had in some time (samples in Potpourri). The truth is, most of us will not be depending on Social Security benefits later in life, unless you figure $11,000 a year ($895 was the average monthly benefit in 2003) is going to put you on easy street. So the sooner we start thinking about exactly what kind of lifestyle we want and how we will pay for it the better. With this in mind, it’s cheering to see initiatives like the new AARP/Home Depot partnership to actively recruit from our numbers for full- and part-time positions. Mad about gardening, woodwork or doing-it-yourself, coupled with some business experience? Home Depot is looking to fill 35,000 jobs this year at 175 new stores with “people who have the experience, the skills, the knowledge and the passion,” according to Dennis Donovan, executive vice president for human resources. While Home Depot won’t give preference to your gray hair, it can be proud of the fact that 15 percent of its 300,000 employees is 50 or older. Few other corporations can make that claim, but that is going to change or “companies will find themselves running off a demographic cliff as baby boomers age,” says “It’s Time to Retire Retirement,” a current Harvard Business Review article based on a forthcoming book co-authored by Ken Dychtwald, Tamara Erickson and Bob Morison. www.hbr.org The other good news is that In addition to enlightened companies, there are categories of work where the demand for mature workers will greatly outstrip supply. As you might have guessed, anything to do with serving the “old, old”, another segment of the population with big numbers, is likely to be a growth industry in the next decades. Here are two examples from a recent report in the Newark Star-Ledger (click or copy/paste into your browser window for the complete story: http://www.nj.com/business/ledger/index.ssf?/base/business-6/1078902759161352.xml. Aging-in-Place Services. Like home-remodeling with a challenge? How about making an existing home more elder-friendly so your clients can stay where they prefer longer? Here are two websites to check out what’s happening in this hot and getting hotter area: WELLcomeHome, a home-modification resource center, www.bsu.edu/wellcomehome/index.html and www.ilivingCentral.com, an online retail store that features products like hands-free faucets and accessible tubs and showers. Maybe you can come up with the next Good Grips success story. POTPOURRI Thanks for holding down the fort for us Old Geeeeeezzzzzzzzzersssss!!!!! You are two wonderful people and keep inspiring me and others. Just got your book and will email you my thoughts when I finish it. Laura Greenberg Active Flight Attendant (formally Stewardess) American Airlines for 38years vibrant and active at 61!!!!!!!!!) Hip hip hurray!!!!!!! that's tellin' him. and nicely put. Joan Harmon, art director Doesn't the fact that people are living longer and working longer bolster Mr. Greenspan’s position that the "safety net" of social security might not be needed as young as before? Surely you're not suggesting that if we collect social security payments while we also "start businesses and employ lots of people" we'll be doing society a favor. Perhaps it would be more fair that if you choose to remain gainfully employed, that you also choose not to drain the social security funds. Perhaps other compromises are in order. Never forget that even the working poor must pay into the system while people over 65 take benefits whether they need them or not. Lynn Jacobson Go girl! Judy Crider, Executive Director, LINKS Community Collaborative Reinventing Retirement News responds: Thanks for your thoughtful comments. To clarify: Our take is that when people continue to work past the age of Social Security eligibility, they bring experience and wisdom to the workplace, relieve pressure on entitlements, and contribute through payroll taxes. Rather than penalize older workers by a reduction in benefits or changes in eligibility, our government might create incentives for continued productivity. How about a tax break for productive elders instead of its wealthiest citizens? What would you say to an elder program like the GI Bill that got so many veterans a college education? Hooray! At 74, I still enjoy my practice of dentistry both in the private sector and in the institutional setting for the handicapped. Retirement in the classical setting of idleness on the beach is the furthest from my mind except for a week or two several times a year. Heading for the slopes of Breckenridge in a couple of weeks to enjoy some of the excitement beauty there from the tops of the hills and on the way shussing down the slopes. Keep up your excellent work. Glenn. Marika--outstanding!! Thank you for taking the time to do this. Boomers are more inclined to "stand up and be counted," I think. and hopefully will have meaningful, positive input in the future of this country. For the first time, I'm finally feeling more optimistic about the possibility of running this hideous administration "out of town on a rail." If they get another four years we will truly be doomed. Think of you often and always with the thought of how glad I am you and Howard are out there. Caryl (Frawley) ,of www.neatwomeninc.com I agree. However, your message was too kind ... the reality is that Alan has a big fat paycheck and a bigger fatter retirement plan just sitting there waiting for him! So he doesn't care about SS! Most of us don't have that luxury! I am counting on what meager sum I will get out of SS to make my life still livable at age 65 (or is it 66,67,???). Who ever gave this NONELECTED man so much power anyway? He says Boo and our 401k's dump several % in a day!. It's not fair! OK I'll get off my soapbox. Steve Tkaczyk Hi, Marika. I appreciate your letter to Greenspan. I would be glad to sign this letter, with other readers, and send it to Greenspan. Thanks for your inspiring leadership -( 2 young 2 retire.) Success to all your endeavors! Phyllis (Blessed and just beginning at 83) Marika - What a fine letter! And it's the truth. I look forward to your words of wisdom - retirement is going to take on a whole new look. And it's very exciting! Bev Berner You go Stones! Lee Desta Right on Marika! At 74 my roar is still strong. Still producing, still learning. Anyone stuck with linear thinking about age just doesn't get it. Alan Gilbert Your letter to Alan Greenspan was well stated--hats off to you for your dedication to the ideas and interests of those of us who are "2you2retire"!! Keep up your great work! Jan Eggersgluess, Great letter, Marika. the same thought occurred to me that they assume all older adults will be retired. Not so. Marlene Stoiber, Ph.D. Marika, great letter. I would think we might also want to address some other solutions to Mr. Greenspan on how to raise money !!! The idea that we should start cutting social security and Medicare is so off base I find it disgusting. Is there no compassion left in this country? He acts like everyone who is not employed is a lazy slob. Life does not always treat everyone fairly. And the growing numbers of children living below the poverty level is unforgivable for the richest nation on earth. "A Nation can be judged by the way it treats its children and elderly." We are a sad nation indeed today. I say we get on the band wagon to stop this "tax cuts for the wealthy" Marika, Hi Jeff; Very interesting letter. My Dear friend and art teacher James Liu, was interviewed last May for a front page article about his work by an S. F. Chronicle staff reporter. One question that was asked that would be of great interest to your friends. "Prof. Liu, you work seven days a week you're 93yrs old! When do plan to retire? "I plan to retire ... The day I die." Thirty days later he retired. . PS: My own father, Bill, was 90. "Worked" some every day. Didn't “Perhaps the only limits to the human mind are those we believe in.” “Here lies Maggie Kuhn," says the epitaph of Grey Panther founder, “under the only stone she left unturned." Ad for New Balance sneakers: “The shortest distance between two points is not the point.”
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