Nevin's Data "Points"

  A recent survey of retirees found the usual litany of regrets — but I think you could sum it all up in one key point. They didn’t have a crystal ball. Oh, not that they characterized it as such. Topping their list were the usual suspects — not saving enough or not starting to save sooner — but nearly half also regretted not having clear retirement goals, underestimating health care and long-term care costs, and not planning for life's inevitable surprises. Not that there’s any sense that these unknowns have actually occurred — more so that as one gets older, the likelihood of those uncertainties becomes — well, more likely. And with less time to arrange contingencies. Or maybe you just have more time to think about it. But having read these types of surveys over the years, I can’t help but wonder if sharing those post-retirement perspectives serves to motivate any pre-retirement behaviors. My guess is — not. ad space For one thing, much of this advice is based on hindsight. It...

Over the past couple of years, one of the most-clicked posts on NAPA-Net has been on a topic that is a bit of a head-scratcher. I’m speaking, of course, of the (now-incessantly tracked), monthly projections of the (potential) cost of living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security. It started back when inflation emerged as a real consumer concern—and it was spurred by the efforts of a group called the Senior Citizens League in publishing—EVERY MONTH—a projected cost of living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security. [i] And our coverage of those projections has been, and continues to be, one of the most clicked-on stories [ii] (ditto other publications, apparently).   Like many, perhaps most, of you, I was initially intrigued by the reporting. Let’s face it, after a couple of decades of relative economic slumber, inflation has reared its ugly head in a way that reminds some of us of the days of our youth when inflation was an actual scary economic reality, rather tha...