Americans Delay Retirement - Essay Example

Article Analysis: Americans Delay Retirement as Housing, Stocks Swoon This article is about the effects of the global economic crisis of 2008/2009. The global economic crisis that was caused by the bursting of a bubble in the real estate sector of the U.S economy left many uncertain about the future. People have different dreams and the aging population that is still working is not an exemption. Most of the people that are still working prefer retiring early and basing on their retirement benefits to maintain their lives after retirement.

However, the global financial crisis had affected the expectations of many people therefore affecting their retirement plans (Levitz 41). Many aged people in the U.S did not wish to retire even after having planned for early retirement. The gray wave that has been used to refer to the reduction in the number of aged people in the workforce did not take place as many old people were preferring working for longer period than leisure. The article provides statistics concerning the increase in the number of aged people above the age of 60 years still in employment.

The crisis had led to low house prices thereby making worse the situation of many people that wished to retire. For instance, it was estimated that house prices had fallen by 20% in 2008. In addition, the prices of many stocks have fallen adding the pressure on many people not to take the option of early retirement (Smith 65). The economic implications of late retirement in the U.S are evident. The effects could be positive as well as negative. For positive effects, the preference for longer working periods rather than early retirement reduces pleasure that retirees exert on social security.

The goodness of reduced pressure on the fund is that instead of paying retiree, the money could be used for investment in the country that could generate more jobs while contributing to the national economy. The investments made by the money could provide jobs for the increasing number of the jobless group of young Americans (Krugman and Wells 106). On the contrary, increased number of aged working Americans could deny the increasing number of young Americans seeking employment an opportunity to work.

The jobs that they could occupy were occupied by the aged people that should have retired. Therefore, the level of unemployment increased. As it was evidenced by the statistics, the number of the unemployed group of Americans grew as the level of dependence also increased. The overall outcome is that there was stagnated economic growth since the level of productivity went down with consumption increasing due to high numbers of dependants (Smith 79). As indicated by Levitz (41) in the article, the delays in retirement were caused by recession.

Moreover, it is evident that whenever there is uncertainty in the economy such as a recession (as in 2009/2009) or dot-com bust (in 2000-2002), people panic and increase their retirement age. The implications of such worse conditions to the economy are not good and it calls for policies to curb occurrence of such scenarios. Since many people blame the government, there should be strict regulation of financial institution to avoid uncertainty and bad economic period for citizens that delays everything not only for the citizens, but also for the state and the economy.

Works Cited Krugman, Paul and Wells, Robin. Macroeconomics. Worth Publishers. 2009. Print. Levitz, Jenifer. ‘Americans Delay Retirement as Housing, Stocks Swoon’. Wall Street Journal (April 2008): 41. Print. Smith Stephen. Labour Economics. London: Routledge.