- Linda, a retired teacher from Ohio, must continue working to stay afloat.
- She and her husband, both civil servants, lived modestly, but she still needed to work.
- Many retirees face the same challenges: low incomes, declining pensions and reduced social security.
Linda, 64, has been working for 31 years, but that doesn’t mean she’s stopped.
The retired Ohio high school teacher, whose last name is known to Business Insider but withheld for privacy and work reasons, said her retirement isn’t going as she had planned. She and her late husband were both public servants, Which means they didn’t have high-paying careers, but she does have a pension, which means she’ll get a monthly payment when she retires. But that doesn’t get her as far as she’d hoped.
“We were living the modest life of two civil servants barely making ends meet,” Linda said. “We bought a house and were in debt. I’m still in debt after he died, the bills keep coming and I have to keep working.”
Before retirement, she earned about $5,000 a month. Now, with her pension, she will earn about $3,700 a month, according to documents reviewed by BI.
She is looking for part-time work and other opportunities that might help her stay afloat. She wants something that will give her a “minimum autonomy” in terms of her schedule, and she said that if necessary, She would apply for Instacart and deliver groceries. She wants to make sure she will never be a burden to her children, even in old age.
She doesn’t see herself ever being able to stop working completely; she said she would work until she physically couldn’t do it anymore.
Linda isn’t alone. Many retirees or soon-to-retirees aren’t in a position to throw in the towel entirely. The Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey found that just over half of respondents over the age of 65 were living on incomes below $30,000 in 2022, and many older Americans expect that Young people work until they are physically unable to do so. This situation has become more acute in recent years as retirement is increasingly reserved for the highest income earners. And it is likely to get worse as pensions continue to decline and Social Security remains in jeopardy.
“I can see myself working for the next 20 years, if I have that many more. Whatever years I have left, I won’t be enjoying my retirement in Florida,” Linda said.
A looming retirement crisis for many
Linda’s retirement goals are modest: she hopes to cobble together a winning formula with her teacher’s pension, a civil service pension plan, the sale of her house and a part-time job.
“I hope that all these ingredients put together in a bowl will allow me to make something that I can live on. I will never be rich. I will never be without worries and concerns, but I would like to get to the point at some point where I am free to travel and supplement my income with a part-time job,” she said.
Linda is among a shrinking number of retirees who have a pension, but it comes after a career spent in low-paid government service. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report last year found that low-income older Americans were increasingly less likely to have a retirement account; at the same time, fewer low-income households had a pension. That means the responsibility for saving and planning for retirement now falls on workers rather than employers who make monthly contributions to a pension; for low-income workers, who can’t always save, it can be an even greater challenge.
Linda said she thinks teachers in particular have gotten a bad rap over the past few decades. The idea that they just want to siphon money from the system couldn’t be further from the truth, she said.
“Even though I had the job, I also had the low salary that came with it. And there are a lot of things you have to deal with in life financially,” she said. “And teaching, unfortunately, is not a career choice that guarantees financial stability.”
Still, she said it was the most uplifting and rewarding work she had ever done.
She also wants the country to rethink discussions around Social Security and retirement benefits in general. She says pensions have fallen into the hands of private equity funds, which could jeopardize those guaranteed benefits. At the same time, politicians have targeted Social Security, suggesting raising the retirement age and failing to do anything to fund its coffers.
“We have to get out of this mindset that suggests that Social Security that people have paid into for decades is somehow a right. It is a right,” she said.
But despite everything, Linda feels lucky: she has two adult sons who will always look out for her; she even moves to be closer to one of them. They earn a good living and she knows she has a safety net.
“There are so many people in this country who, as they approach retirement age, throw up their hands and wonder in despair how they are going to get by,” she said. “And those are the people I feel very sorry for.”
Are you struggling to retire or not living the retirement you had hoped for? Are you working during your retirement? Contact this journalist at jkaplan@businessinsider.com.
