“Retirement” Has Changed! Here’s What You Need to Know in Today’s World


What do Baby Boomers, Gen-X-rs and Millennials have in common?


Compared to the Greatest Generation, when it comes to retirement planning quite a lot.

Let’s focus on four easy to understand concepts:

1.We are living longer and have access to better healthcare, which means we will need to plan for a much longer retirement than our grandparents.

2. Social Security is much less certain! At Meridien, we generally counsel our clients to account for only 30% of their retirement income to be provided through social security!

3. Great employers care about their employees’ retirement and provide leading plans and investments to do their part. But, no one cares about your retirement savings as much as you do! This wasn’t true for our grandparents, where pensions often provided for them through their retirement.

4. The three-legged retirement stool may now be four-legged:

        1. Social Security
        2. Employee pensions
        3. Personal savings
        4. AND income from work


Virtually everyone has heard of and, perhaps, has used the three‐legged stool metaphor to describe sources of retirement income. The earliest use of this metaphor was by Reinhard A. Hohaus, who was an actuary for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

Mr. Hohaus, who was an important private‐sector authority on Social Security, used the image in a speech in 1949 at a forum on Social Security.  The basic concept, which the metaphor expresses, was clearly understood and widely shared by the creators of the Social Security program, and its use continues today.

Today, however, the stool has a fourth legincome from work.  Individuals age 65 and older receive their income from four primary sources. Social Security represents the largest portion at 30%. A close second is income from work at 34%, followed by pension and IRA income at 17% and savings and asset income at 19%.

At PensionmarkMeridien we care as much as you do about your Plan’s participants successful retirement outcomes! That is why we continually offer educational programs to our clients as well as within our community.