"downward shift means that retirees may have to rely on younger relatives in order to survive".
REALLY ! I´m retired and my 41 yo is unemployed and I have been helping him. His son had trouble finding a job and is now in the Navy.
WHO do I rely on?? MYSELF.

If we cannot leave our children a wealthier country - we should at least leave them a freer one. Each generation should have more freedom and more choices than the generation before. But - the exact opposite is what is happening.

This is what happens in any society where libtards are allowed to thrive. They are a societal disease and must be eradicated from the body politic.

Thank you, Boomers, you did a great job. You took the greatest country in the world and drove it into the ditch. It is fitting that you should be the first generation to do worse than the one previous one, the WWII/Depression era generation.

Yes, yes, I know there eceptions. I have three of them. It was not eary raising them at that time.

Stupid article. The children are in worse shape than the retirees.

Why would anyone be surprised with this. Many of us were frugal and saved, and now we are being punished by 0bama. We get no interest on our money, and since he is printing 83 Billion Dollars a month, our money that gets no interest is being devalued every month. The younger people of today save nothing, they live on credit cards and home equity loans; when they get in over their heads for several hundred thousands of dollars, they go bankrupt and start over. I personally know many young people who bought homes for nothing down, took $250,000 out of the house, spent all of it, and then quit paying the mortgage. Many of them have lived free in these houses for four years before they were finally foreclosed and had to move out. Just think how bad it will be for them when they retire; they saved nothing, and they have big spending habits.

I don´t think it´s all that bad. It just depends on how well a person prepared for retirement. I´ve been retired a bit more than two years. I worked until 68 so I could save a bit more money and to boost my Social Security. I´m doing okay. My parents were able to retire at 62 and they lived comfortably into their 90s.

What has impacted some of my older retired friends is the loss of interest and dividend income. Stock dividends have been cut. CDs pay next to nothing these days.

Interest on savings accounts is next to nothing. The annual interest rate on my savings is 0.23%.

I don´t have any children to support me - so I´m well prepared.

Retirement? What´s that?

I haven´t planned on it since 2008, when my 401K became a 200.5K. It has never recovered to its previous high point.

I figure someday, they´ll find me slumped over in my cubicle.

Ya. What #8 said. "what retirement?!? indeed!".

I made a livable wage in California but taking into consideration I may have been income rich - I was asset poor, very poor. I was taxed to death and got nothing in terms of government benefits or tax credits that my friends did. Been working since I was 14 with nearly my entire salary being taxable wage - (except 401k contrib. which are now gone - thank you 2008!)

I figured that my only real large debt (college) was going to work out in my favor at some point - that at least i had lived within my means, and protected my credit score.

But nope. Everyone got a clean slate with these forclosures and the home prices are still out of reach for those of us that chose wisely. And the free rent. They lived in those homes RENT FREE FOR YEARS.

I am so angry.

I´ll be working until a drop.

That´s because retirees today are the first to have to live in a country that is ruled by the criminal mobs, since the country has been handed over to the same in the past twenty years or so.

It will only get worse. We have been robbed and the robbery is still in progress.

Welcome to the ´new normal´. Low returns, slow growth, and inflation. Sad state of affairs.

Could be looking at another recession, too.

Victory Lap: CRA