Financial Horizons Shrinking for Retirees.

• Position: ECONOMICS

Roughly 40% of Americans who currently are considered middle class based on their income levels will fall into poverty or near poverty by the time they reach age 65, suggests a study by the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at The New School for Social Research, New York. Depressed earnings and asset values and increased health-care costs are the primary reasons cited.

"Over the past few decades," says Elliot Dinkin, president and CEO of Cowden Associates, "what was once the mainstay of middle-class retirement--a steady, consistent, dependable, guaranteed monthly pension payment--is largely gone. That, and several other factors, have combined to create a retirement crisis that's rapidly reaching hardship levels."

Not coincidentally, older Americans increasingly continue to work longer than their forebears. Over 20% of the U.S. workforce is 55 or older, a historic high, and that percentage is expected to increase. Some 74% of Americans say they plan to work past traditional retirement age. Moreover, 66% of millennials (people currently aged 22-37) report that they have nothing saved for retirement, either due to the absence of retirement offerings or to retirement plan eligibility requirements that exclude part-time workers and recent hires. (More than 94% of millennials who are eligible for a workplace retirement plan are saving--about the same participation rate as with previous...