Perhaps You Won't Need a Retirement Job

So what is the new retirement with so many people expecting to have some sort of retirement job?

According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 77 percent of American employees include working for pay at a retirement career as part of their retirement plan.

Most of these American soon-to-be retired surveyed say they'll be working because they want to, not because they have to.

Don't count mentioning a retirement job in your retirement speech, however, or braggin about your great retirement job on your retirement T-shirts.

Pew, however, finds those statements out of step with the experiences of people who have already retired. Just 12 percent of the American retirees Pew surveyed say they are currently working either full or part time in a retirement job for pay. And according to the results of another survey cited by Pew, only 27 percent of current retirees have had any sort of retirement job doing anything for pay during their retirement.

What this means is that retirees or the soon-to-be retired who plan to have a retirement job should think again. Of course they create any one of many unreal retirement jobs. For instance, they can take up writing and self-publishing as I have done.

Perhap not as many people will need to work in retirement as think they will have to.

Currently, most American retirees don't have a lot of retirement income.

Here, according to the 2007 American Census, is the total retiree income for households age 65 and older in the U.S.:

• Under $5,000 (2.4 percent)
• $5,000 to $9,999 (7.7 percent)
• $10,000 to $14,999 (13.3 percent)
• $15,000 to $19,999 (11.4 percent)
• $20,000 to $24,999 (9.3 percent)
• $25,000 to $34,999 (15 percent)
• $35,000 to $49,999 (13.7 percent)
• $50,000 to $74,999 (11.9 percent)
• $75,000 to $99,999 (6 percent)
• $100,000 and over (9.3 percent)

Note: Don't forget to include your spouse in your retirement plan.

Here are a few quotes relating to retirement:

"It [retirement] was absolutely boring. You can't go and say, 'I'm retired now.
That's it!' It won't take long and you're really gone for good and someone throws the last shovel of dirt on a coffin with your name on it. That's the moment you're really retiring — when you die."
— Ozzy Osbourne

The Ideal Retirement Plan: "Marry an old rich broad and wait for her to die."
- Ivan Wilson (commenting on an online article about retirment.)

"I used to have dreams that I died at my desk.
Now that I've retired, I don't have those dreams anymore."
- Haselback (commenting on an online article about retirement.)

Ernie J. Zelinski
Best-Selling Author, Innovator, and Creativity Consultant
Author of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free
(Over 125,000 copies sold and published in 9 languages)
and The Joy of Not Working
(Over 250,000 copies sold and published in 17 languages)