Short Stuff: The Retirement Curse

This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human. Hey, welcome to the short stuff, Chuck, Jerry, Dave, short stuff, Tally Ho. Yeah, we're talking about retirement today, and specifically what can be referred to as the retirement curse, which is this idea that, you know, maybe you're doing fine in life and you're chugging along at your job, and then you retire, and you encounter all sorts of problems, maybe mental health problems, maybe physical health problems, and retirement can be the trigger to that kind of thing. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, I think it's one of those things where a lot of people are familiar with the anecdotally, like maybe they've seen somebody, you know, just their health declines very quickly, or it's just something changes for the worst from retirement, and it's actually quantifiable, and apparently five to six years after retirement, this is just the average American. I suspect it's not quite as bad elsewhere, and in fact, I couldn't fine mention of the retirement curse as we're presenting it anywhere else. It does seem to be a semi-American phenomenon. Interesting. But there's a, the average American shows a 69% decline in mental health within the first five to six years after retirement, a 5% to 6% increase in illness condition, right? Yeah. A 5% to 16% increase in difficulties with daily activities, and when they control all the other variables, they're like, it seems to be retirement, but of course, retirement itself is not doing this to you. It's all the life changes that come from retirement. Yeah, exactly. It's that transition, how you deal with that is really, really key, and something that you really got to think about going into it. I hope if you're a person of retirement age, you've got a plan in place. We're going to talk more about that, but it seems like the worst cases are when people just retire, and all of a sudden they're like, wait a minute, I have my days free all the time. I'm not going to this place anymore if you went to an office, let's say. I'm not surrounded by people every day that I normally might be. Going to work is mental engagement, and even if you're not doing hard labor, just getting up and getting out of bed and going to an office and moving about the world, represents some kind of physical activity, and especially if when you retire, you just kind of hit the couch or the recliner. That's a big difference. Yeah. Also, like those people that you're interacting with, even if you work from home, just interacting with them on calls or via email. You don't have that all of a sudden. If you start emailing those same people, they're like, you retired, go do your thing. I'm trying to work here. Yeah. They don't let you in on calls any longer. If you don't already have a pretty tight circle of friends outside of work, a lot of Americans do not. Yeah. Especially if you get older, it just gets harder and harder to make friends, and because you spend a lot of your time at work, those people become your friends, de facto. If you don't have that network already in place, you need to go figure out how to do it because that is probably ultimately what's behind the decline more than anything. Yeah. For sure. Like we said, you need to have a plan in place for, we'll talk about the exercise and social engagement and stuff like that, or maybe just keep working or work part-time or volunteer. So we'll take a break and talk a little bit about those work statistics right after this. Oh, yeah. ♪ The star we should love ♪ All right. I got this from the Bureau of Labor Statistics here in the United States, kind of the picture over the years of when people stop working. I think in 1948, the rate of age 65 and older working was 27%, 47% of men, 9% of women, age 65 and older started trending down in the latter half of the 20th century and hit its lowest point in 1985 and only 10% of people over the age of 65 were working. And since 1985, that started to grow and started to trend upward, like people working later and later because sometimes economic necessity, sometimes just preference. And then the last year I had available, at least, was 2024, when it was about 19% of people aged 65 and over, still working and I think 38% of those were doing so part-time. Right. You can also, like the fact that it hit its low point in 1985, that's just about the time the unions got broken up and pensions went away and got replaced by 401(k)s. Interesting. Yeah. So, and that is one reason why a lot of people stay in the workforce, it's financial necessity. And I was looking for the retirement curse abroad outside of the United States. One reference I found was in Australia, but essentially what they were talking about was the retirement curse of outliving your savings. And a lot of people are scared to death by that idea and there's a lot of people in the United States who are like, "I have to keep working. I don't have a choice because I'm going to keep living longer beyond my savings." So that's a big one, especially because we don't have universal single-payer or free healthcare here in the United States. That gets more and more expensive the older you get and you happen to need it more and more the older you get too. So the insurance plan that, mostly you get that through your employer, you used to before Obamacare. If you have a good insurance plan that you don't pay that much for through your employer, that in and of itself is reason enough to keep working for a lot of Americans. Yeah. End of life care is really, really, really expensive. Another reason. It's a real screw job. It is. Yeah. You work your whole life and then get hit with a tremendous bill that you can't afford at the end of it. Exactly. It's sad. So personal choice is another reason. People are generally healthier and living longer these days compared to previous decades. Sure. And so a lot of people just want to keep working because it gives them a sense of purpose, something to do. They want to keep joining those calls. Yeah. Well, and remote work is another reason why people are working a little later because hey, you're at home. So, you know, let's get off your back. Yep. So there's actually a Harvard study that was like, okay, what's behind all of this? Because yes, everybody, you know, has some sort of anecdotal data, but there's got to be some factor that really rises above everything else. And Harvard's been studying this cohort of 724 men for over 75 years now. There's only 60 of them left and they're all in their 90s. But every two years, they track their health, they ask them about their satisfaction in life. And they found that when you separate the wheat from the chaff, the cream from the milk, peanut butter from the chocolate, what stands is social connections. And we've talked about this before and it makes me really nervous every time we do. But the more social connections you have, the more connected you are with other people, the more you interact with other people, the happier you are, the longer life you have, the less disease burden you have into old age. And just the better off you are in general, it seems to be the underlying thing for health into old age. Yeah. For sure. The fourth, this is an amazing study, the Harvard study of adult development. And the fourth director is a guy named Robert Waldinger who is a psychiatrist and he has an awesome TED Talk that I recommend people watch and it's a TED Talk. So it's not more than, what, what is it, 18 minutes or something? I don't remember when the, yeah, there's a set length I can't remember, but it's called what makes a good life, lessons from the longest study on happiness. And he reiterates what you said is that, you know, those relationships are kind of the key to remain socially connected and loneliness is toxic. So, you know, you're, you're, you want to avoid that stuff, both physically and mentally. And on the physical side, one kind of obvious things that you should do is, I mean, if you're a runner and you do cardio and you can keep doing that, that's great. But strength training and stretching and stuff like that, resistance exercises is a really big deal to start doing as or continue to do if you don't do it already as you get older. It's enormous. It helps me keep your bones healthy, it helps keep your muscles strong and prevents things like sarcopenia where you develop a stoop balance is a big one because falls are a big problem that you get older. So strength training, resistance training that helps your balance as well. And you also just want to move. One thing I'm heartened by is there's so many people who I see out taking walks in the middle of the day every day. I think that's great. And that's a big part of staying, I guess, healthy or just living life is getting outside and moving around, even if it is just going for a walk, you know, or chasing pigeons at the pond. Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, one of the mental aspects is daily routine. And if that's chasing pigeons is your thing, like you need to have a plan in place and have a routine and not to be like, well, what's the day going to throw my way? You know, you also need to eat, you know, eat well, obviously nutrient dense foods and get really good sleep. That's key. But like, getting out in the world is a big one. You know, I think everyone has seen this maybe sadly somewhere in their family. Like the worst thing you can do is turning that television on during daylight hours. It gets worse though, Chuck. If you turn it on and you turn it on to cable news, it's post. Yeah. Not only are you going to die, but your family wants you dead now. It's a problem. It is. When you start sitting on the couch and watching TV, during the day, it's, you know, it can be the beginning of the end. So you need to be out in the world. You need to try and learn some new things. Like it's, you can get so inspired by seeing, you know, either on social media or whatever or news stories when you see some of our senior friends out there, like taking a dance class for the first time or a new hobby or learning an instrument or a new language or something like that. Like that is just food for your brain. Yeah, like if your local community is like putting a one penny tax or something to build a new senior center, that's money well spent. Yeah, agreed. And then of course you can volunteer, you can mentor. There's a lot of stuff you can do. I think the point is just keep doing stuff. Like you said, like, resist the trap of just sitting on the couch all day, you know? Yeah, because the retirement curse is self-inflicted generally. So you hopefully have a choice as to how you spend your remaining years and we say, because I mean, I'm 55, dude, that's coming, that's coming for me sooner than you. And I want to, I want to be out in the world. I want to be one of those old guys out there on the golf course in his 90s or taking a damn, I want to learn to dance finally in my, in my 80s. That's awesome. You know, kind of dance modern jazz, break dancing. Oh, that'd be great. The break dancing grandpa. There's your second chapter right there. There you have it. Well, yes, I think the short stuff proved that we are becoming old men and look for a short stuff in the future on sitting. And I think Chuck's short stuff is out. 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