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Retirement Communities & Senior Housing |
Retirement Living News January 2005 HEADLINES
(Click
on headline to read story) Archive
of Past Issues
New Retirement Communities Invest in Yourself: Non-Financial Tips for Retiring Boomers If you're one of the millions of baby boomers beginning to think about retirement, here are some New Year's tips from Ellen Freudenheim, author of a new book titled "Looking Forward: An Optimist's Guide to Retirement." * Think Big: Life's about More
than Money * Forge Your Personal Path * Find Your Anchor Activity * Give Back * Make Time for Fun Kick
back! * Be Realistic about Finances * Invest in Your Social Portfolio * Staying Healthy= Money in the
Bank Experts Look to the Future of Retirement and the Elderly In a series of interviews with writers at the Christian Science Monitor, eight experts in the forecasting business were asked to predict what life will be like in 15 years. They tackled questions like what kinds of houses and communities will Americans be living in, where will they live, and what kind of jobs they will hold. Marta Keane, president of The Strategies Group in Earlysville, Va., said there will be two generations in the group called elders. In the past there was only one. In 2020, the Silent Generation (born between 1924 and 1945) will be 76 and older. Baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) will be approximately 55 to 75. The Silents are very civic-minded, said Keane, but want to stay active and participate in the arts, lifelong learning, and do volunteer work. She said they want to be in an intergenerational community setting and are less interested in moving away to Sun City and living with only older people. This, she notes, is a big change since we've always had our elder communities separate in gated or retirement communities. The boomers are concerned with fitness, health, quality of life, some spirituality but not necessarily religion. Both groups want to be focused on wellness, including intellectual, physical, emotional/social, and spiritual. In terms of housing, architects are already designing communities with pods, where small apartments for older seniors open up onto common areas. They recognize that people want privacy but also want to interact in a social environment. Technology will also change how healthcare is delivered to the aged, according to Kearn. Instead of a home healthcare worker making regular visits to check on someone, the elder person might just put their hand on a computer screen and the information would be sent to a home-health data center. A visit would be made to only those with a need. Dr. Marvin Cetron, president of Forecasting International in Falls Church, Va., another expert that was interviewed, believes that by 2020, people will routinely living to between 85 and 95 years old. People will work longer, retirement ages will change, and younger workers behind them may not get promoted. In 10 or 12 years, Cetron believes people will phase into retirement. Between ages 70 and 72, you might work 30 hours. From 72 on, it may be 20 hours. Medical costs will continue to rise, says Cetron, probably at double or triple the inflation rate for the next 15 years. Many people will feel that they can't afford to retire if medical costs keep going up, and will want to work longer to make sure they are covered. To read what the other experts had to
say, read the January 5, 2005 issue of the Christian Science Monitor. http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0105/p14s02-lihc.htm New AARP Ad Campaign Highlights Danger in Using Private Accounts to Save Social Security Program New AARP Ad Campaign Highlights Danger in Using Private Accounts to Save Social Security Program To keep insecurity out of Social Security, AARP is reminding members of Congress and the public about the risks of carving out private accounts from Social Security which millions of older Americans rely on as their only source for guaranteed retirement income. In full-page advertisements that began running on January 4 in 53 daily newspapers and six publications influential to lawmakers on Capitol Hill, AARP warns that turning Social Security into a program where benefits are based on private investments poses serious risks. "Winners and losers are stock market terms. Do you really want them to become retirement terms?" one ad asks. The ads will run through January 16. "We must not forget that Social Security is the only guaranteed source of income that a majority of workers have for their retirement. AARP will not agree to jeopardize people's Social Security benefits," said AARP President Marie Smith. "Americans are saving too little, whether on their own or through plans such as 401(k)s. Workers will need Social Security for its guaranteed lifelong benefits when they retire," she added. On the same day the ads began to run, the Washington Post reported that the Bush administration has signaled that it will propose changing the formula that sets initial Social Security benefit levels, cutting promised benefits by nearly a third in the coming decades. Under the proposal, the first-year benefits for retirees would be calculated using inflation rates rather than the rise in wages over a worker's lifetime. Because wages tend to rise considerably faster than inflation, the new formula would stunt the growth of benefits, slowly at first but more quickly by the middle of the century. The White House hopes that some, if not all, of those benefit cuts would be made up by gains in newly created personal investment accounts that would harness returns on stocks and bonds. But by embracing "price indexing," the president would for the first time detail the painful costs involved in closing the gap between the Social Security benefits promised to future retirees and the taxes available to fund them. In late February or March, the administration plans to introduce its proposed overhaul of the system, including creation of personal investment accounts and the new benefit calculation, according to several Republicans close to the White House. AARP CEO Bill Novelli said, "There are right ways and wrong ways to strengthen Social Security. Passing on several trillion dollars in additional federal debt to future generations as a result of diverting money away from Social Security to fund private accounts is the wrong way." "We are not advocating for the status quo," Novelli explained. "We need to make a series of modest changes sooner rather than later to strengthen the program for future generations. But siphoning funds out of Social Security to finance private accounts could make the program's financial outlook worse." AARP's position is spelled out on its Web site -- http://www.aarp.org/socialsecurity/ In informal briefings on Capitol Hill, White House aides have told lawmakers and aides that Bush will propose the change in the benefits formula, an approach recommended by his 2001 Commission to Strengthen Social Security, according to congressional aides and lobbyists. Currently, initial benefits are set by a complex formula that calculates workers' average annual earnings in their 35 highest-paid years and adjusts those earnings up from those years to reflect standards of living near that worker's retirement age. That adjustment is based on wage growth over that time span. Under the commission plan, the adjustment would be based instead on the rise of consumer prices. The change would save trillions of dollars in scheduled expenditures and solve Social Security's long-term deficit, but at a cost. According to the Social Security Administration's chief actuary, a middle-class worker retiring in 2022 would see guaranteed benefits cut by 9.9 percent. By 2042, average monthly benefits for middle- and high-income workers would fall by more than a quarter. A retiree in 2075 would receive 54 percent of the benefit now promised. While no decision has been made, allies
and opponents expressed little doubt about where the president is
heading. CalPERS Partners with Shea Homes to Build Active Adult Communities The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) has teamed up with Shea Homes to design and built active adult communities in California, Colorado, Arizona, and Washington. The pension fund's board approved $200 million for the effort. Shea is the nation's largest privately-owned homebuilding and residential land development company. CalPERS capital will be used to develop Shea's "Trilogy" brand communities that include from 1,200 to 2,500 home sites within a golf course resort community. They are designed to offer the customer a full range of amenities together with their new home, including fitness centers, ballrooms, libraries, cyber cafes, tennis courts, swimming pools, and continuing education programs. Shea currently has seven "Triology"
communities operating in the Bay Area of Northern California, in the
Inland Empire and Desert areas of Southern California, in the Central
Coast area of California as well as in the greater Phoenix area and in
Redmond, Wash. For information on the Trilogy homes, visit www.trilogylife.com. Former U.S. Health Chief Issues Warning When Tommy G. Thompson , the secretary of health and human services, announced last month that he was resigning, he said he wished Congress had given him the power to negotiate with drug manufacturers to secure lower prices for Medicare beneficiaries. The White House and Republicans in Congress have insisted that the government should not have that power because it would lead to price controls, thereby reducing the revenues that drug companies need for research. However, when the nation responded to anthrax in 2001, Thompson said he was able to negotiate with the maker of Cipro, an antibiotic used to treat anthrax. As a result, the price was reduced to 95 cents a tablet, far less than the $1.77 the government had been paying. The outgoing secretary, freed from the constraints of administration policy, gave candid and unexpected answers at a news conference. He said he tended to favor creation of an independent office to monitor the safety of prescription drugs after they are approved for sale to the public. Critics of the Food and Drug Administration have long called for such an office. After initially opposing the idea, Bush administration officials and managers at the FDA have said they will examine any proposals. Thompson expressed grave concern about
the threat of a global flu pandemic caused by mutations in a strain of
avian influenza virus, known popularly as bird flu. He also warned of
the possibly of a terrorist attack on the nation's food supply.
"We are importing a lot of food from the Middle East and it would
be easy to tamper with that. He called for better technologies to
detect contamination. |
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