I missed a PBS show on retirement shown back
in 2006. The video stream of it is online at
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retir...
Below is an excerpt from the main web page on that program.
"I think this is a crisis in the making," says Alicia Munnell,
director of the Boston College Center for Retirement Research. "I
think 10 or 15 years from now, people who approach their early 60s are
simply not going to have enough money to retire on."
"I would say, unless you're fortunate to be in the upper-income
quartiles, that you're probably going to be in for a very rough ride,"
adds Jack VanDerhei of the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).
"You're not going to have sufficient monies to pay the predictable
expenses -- your housing, your utilities, your food -- plus the
potential catastrophic medical care costs."
Half of America's private sector workforce has no employer-sponsored
retirement plan; among the half that does, twice as many workers have
contribution plans like 401(k)s than have lifetime pensions, a
complete reversal from 25 years ago. The move from lifetime pensions
to 401(k) plans has meant that employees now bear much more of the
cost -- and risk -- for saving for retirement. According to the U.S.
Department of Labor, in 1978 workers put in only 11 percent of total
contributions to retirement plans, while corporations put in 89
percent; by 2000, the employee share had leapt to 51 percent and the
company share had fallen to 49 percent.

FRONTLINE takes viewers inside the Chapter 11 bankruptcy of United
Airlines. United dumped its pension plans, which were underfunded by
nearly $10 billion, on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, the federal agency insuring pensions that is running a $23
billion deficit. Because the PBGC only insures pensions up to a
certain amount, many United employees and retirees saw their pensions
slashed dramatically.

To maintain their standard of living, experts say Americans will need
to save ten times their annual pay in their 401(k)s by the time they
retire.
According to VanDerhei of the EBRI, the typical baby boomer is
approaching retirement with only 3 times annual salary -- enough
to last 7 or 8 years.
"What holds up our economy," says Hamilton, "is
consumer spending. When retirees are 20 percent of the population and
run out of money, then 'poof,' there goes the economy."
"What is the meaning of retirement if the only way you can live is to
work?" asks Notre Dame professor Teresa Ghilarducci "The answer is
there is no meaning to retirement anymore. We are now shifting from
lifetime pensions to lifetime work. It's the end of retirement."