Financial security in retirement is a concern for all Americans, particularly women in what the Alliance for Lifetime Income calls the Peak 65 Zone; they are trailing their male contemporaries in assets.
“The long-running effects of women earning less and saving less during their working years are now becoming magnified and felt by millions of Peak 65 women entering retirement,” CEO Jean Statler said in a statement Tuesday.
Peak 76 is a term coined by the organization to characterize this year’s demographic phenomenon, where more Americans will turn 65 than at any other time in history. According to the Alliance, more than 4.1 million Americans will turn 65 this year, marking the beginning of a surge that is expected to continue each year through 2027.
The term is trade-marked by the Alliance, “but I’m glad everyone’s using it,” Statler told the McKnight’s Business Daily.
Half of the women in the Peak 65 Zone surveyed for the Alliance’s 2024 Protected Retirement Income and Planning annual study have less $100,000 in assets saved for retirement. Single women are more vulnerable than married/partnered women, according to the data. Among single women, the percentage with less than $100,000 in assets is 67%.
“What we found over the six years of our education and focusing in particular on women is it really verifies the need for us to educate people about how to produce income in retirement
and how to protect some of their valuable investments,” Statler said. “And the only way to get that really, in addition to Social Security, is a pension or an annuity.”
Statler advises everyone to delay collecting Social Security for as long as possible. By delaying benefits from age 62 to 70, she said, people can double their monthly income through Social Security. But workers should seek guidance from a financial adviser to protect their assets.
In general, only about 38% of Americans work with a financial adviser, according to Statler. The study found that women are significantly more inclined than men to seek asset protection advice from financial professionals; 92% of women favor enlisting a financial adviser compared to 82% of men.
“Women understand the importance of protection,” she said. “They just don’t know how to get it, and that’s what we’re talking about in terms of this kind of education … and anything else to really motivate them to help figure that out and understand that there are products out there that can protect you from the ups and downs of the market.”
