Mile "Markers"

It may just be because I’ve got a birthday this week, but it would be hard to miss all the “fuss” about age and retirement during the NFL playoffs, a topic that now seems sure to carry on into the Super Bowl.

This past weekend we got to see two “old” quarterbacks fight it out for the NFC title—Tom Brady (43) and Aaron Rodgers (37)—and two young quarterbacks—Josh Allen (24) and Patrick Mahomes (25) lead their teams in the AFC championship. The inevitable comparisons will surely now carry into Super Bowl 55, as Brady becomes the oldest quarterback to reach that pinnacle (he was already tied with Peyton Manning for that status) and Mahomes (already) one of the youngest. (Ben Roethlisberger, at 23, holds the distinction of being the youngest, having wrested it in 2006 from… Tom Brady.) 

Their ages notwithstanding, this past weekend it seems fair to say that Brady played with the skill and energy of a younger man (even a younger version of himself), while Mahomes demonstrated the maturity and field generalship of one much older.

One’s age is a notoriously unreliable marker for progress and maturity, and yet it often serves as a milestone for many of our significant life points. For example, there’s the age at which you begin school (when that wasn’t a stay-at-home experience), that all-important 13th birthday when one becomes a teenager, the age at which you are permitted to drive (one that generally also “ages” your parents), the age at which you can vote… and, of course, the one after which you can expect to be “carded” without incident. Prior to those “markers,” new parents can likely recite for you the various developmental timetables at which infants are expected to crawl, walk, talk and sleep through the night (the latter a particularly valued milestone). 

The preparation for retirement also has key milestones. ERISA provides certain age (and service) parameters for participation, of course, but down the road there’s: 

  • age 50, when you can “catch up” on contributions you might have missed making when you had other obligations; 
  • age 59½, when you can make untaxed savings without subtracting from them that 10% penalty for “early” withdrawal;
  • age 62, when many (still) decide to begin drawing Social Security; and
  • age 65, which is (still) considered to be something of an official age for retirement (even though those who are now that age will find that Social Security considers your full retirement age to be age 66 and change). 

More recently, we now have 72 (not so long ago, 70½), the age at which the IRS insists that you begin drawing what it deems to be a required minimum distribution of those as-yet-untaxed retirement savings.

Milestones—those numbered markers you can find along most major highways these days—date back to the early days of the Roman Empire. They were not only designed to tell you how far, but also to confirm that you were on the right road—and to provide some sense of the distance remaining to the desired destination. They can, of course, also serve as a handy reference point on traffic issues ahead.

For those on that road to retirement—and those who help them get there—these milestones can provide a valuable reminder of the opportunity, if not the need, to reassess and (re)evaluate regularly. 

However, they should also remind us all that this is a journey—one that has not only mileposts along the way, but a destination—and one where the timing of arrival may well be dictated by factors other than age, and beyond our control.

- Nevin E. Adams, JD

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