COVID and Retirement Savings

We all know that the savings and investment portfolios of many have experienced signifcant drops during the pandemic.  What does this mean for retirement security for many? Governing ran an article, Pandemic Will Mean a Worse Retirement for Millions of Workers.

If you were born in 1960, it turns out you had bad timing. A portion of the Social Security benefit formula is based on national average wages for each cohort of 60-year-old workers. It’s not yet certain how long double-digit unemployment rates will last, but it’s a safe bet that record job losses will bring down average wages this year. That means a middle-income worker who was born in 1960 could see her Social Security benefits reduced in retirement by 14 percent, or $3,900 a year, according to a study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

Older workers, regardless of their birth year, are suddenly having a harder time. In most recessions, they have been largely shielded from job losses. That isn’t the case in 2020…