Article Looks At How Americans Are Preparing--Or Not Preparing--For Retirement

their net worth in 2008, and the decline disproportionately hit the households of those nearing retirement. But an article published today by Standard & Poor's, titled "Pensions: Can We Ever Retire?," says that even before the asset bubble burst, Americans looked ill-prepared for retirement.

This article is the first in a series of articles to be published by Standard & Poor's this week and next that explore different aspects of the retirement issue.

Americans are not financially prepared to stop working, the article says. Indeed, many households have no real retirement plan at all. The average American family has not saved enough, and at a time when they should be free of burdens such as mortgages, many preretirement households still have a high level of debt. Unsurprisingly, American workers now have far less confidence than they did in 2007 that they'll have sufficient funds for their golden years, according to the Retirement Confidence Survey conducted by the Employee Benefits Research Institute and Matthew Greenwald & Associates in April 2010.  Even more households say they have no savings.

The best solution might well be the one many say they're adopting: working longer. Through history, people didn't stop working until they were unable to work. When the Social Security Act of 1935 set the retirement age at 65, life expectancy at birth was 62 years; today, it's 78. At age 65, today's average male can expect to live another 18 years, and the average woman 20 years. The idea that older workers are entitled to leisure as a reward for 40 or so years of work really didn't become prevalent until the 20th century, mostly after World War II (coinciding with the rise of golf as a sport).

Perhaps Americans might have to shift their thinking and realize that 20 years of retirement after 40 years of work is too much, and that they might have to work well past 65.