The job outlook is bleak - especially for older folks, teens, and recent college grads. But there are resources that are available to you.
Over two and a half million Americans lost their job last year. And more job cuts are expected this year. If you find yourself out of work, retraining may be the only option. Here is where you can find help free right now.
DENVER, Colorado: 'Take us back from the direction we've taken'
Rich Ortiz, 60, has spent the past 30 years training and certifying technicians, including the team at Rocketdyne that developed the space shuttle. He now teaches 26 different technical certification courses at aerospace and defense giant Pratt & Whitney in Los Angeles.
Denise Edwards has seen her portfolio shed more than 6 percent this week. The 62-year-old near-retiree said she's angry and annoyed by this week's financial chaos, with the realization that she might have to work several more years to make up her losses.
Last year, borrowers took out more than 132,000 reverse mortgages - 50% more than the year before and almost 10 times as many as five years ago. Such loans, as you may already know, allow you to draw down your home equity if you're 62 or older without repaying it as long as you stay in your house.
Too young to retire, too old to get a new job. That's how many older workers are feeling these days.
The economic downturn is hitting middle-aged and older American workers hard, forcing more than one in four to postpone retirement, according to a survey released Tuesday by the AARP.
Mortgage payments sucking you dry? Boomers short on retirement savings may have another option: reverse mortgages. Can these complicated products fill the gap?
My AARP card arrived in the mail last year, unsolicited, just a few months shy of my fiftieth birthday, like it does for just about everyone - and I reacted like, well, just about everyone.
The job outlook is bleak - especially for older folks, teens, and recent college grads. But there are resources that are available to you.
Over two and a half million Americans lost their job last year. And more job cuts are expected this year. If you find yourself out of work, retraining may be the only option. Here is where you can find help free right now.
DENVER, Colorado: 'Take us back from the direction we've taken'
Rich Ortiz, 60, has spent the past 30 years training and certifying technicians, including the team at Rocketdyne that developed the space shuttle. He now teaches 26 different technical certification courses at aerospace and defense giant Pratt & Whitney in Los Angeles.
Denise Edwards has seen her portfolio shed more than 6 percent this week. The 62-year-old near-retiree said she's angry and annoyed by this week's financial chaos, with the realization that she might have to work several more years to make up her losses.
Last year, borrowers took out more than 132,000 reverse mortgages - 50% more than the year before and almost 10 times as many as five years ago. Such loans, as you may already know, allow you to draw down your home equity if you're 62 or older without repaying it as long as you stay in your house.
Too young to retire, too old to get a new job. That's how many older workers are feeling these days.
The economic downturn is hitting middle-aged and older American workers hard, forcing more than one in four to postpone retirement, according to a survey released Tuesday by the AARP.
Mortgage payments sucking you dry? Boomers short on retirement savings may have another option: reverse mortgages. Can these complicated products fill the gap?
My AARP card arrived in the mail last year, unsolicited, just a few months shy of my fiftieth birthday, like it does for just about everyone - and I reacted like, well, just about everyone.
Steve Daimler decided to exit retirement and return to a job. If you're thinking about heading back to work, but you feel a little rusty, check out the following tips.
AH, VANITY, THY NAME IS...BOOMER?
You're rushing to drop the kids at school, fumbling with coats and lunch boxes, when you get the call. Mom's had a fall, and she's in the E.R. Your dad is panicked and asking you to come home, now.
Are your savings goals on target for your golden years? Here are tips to help you sock away the right amount.
Every seven and a half seconds, a member of the baby boomer generation turns 50. So in a 45-minute conversation with Bill Novelli, CEO of the AARP, 360 Americans became eligible to join the powerful lobbying organization that Novelli has headed for the past six years.
IF YOU OR SOMEONE IN YOUR FAMILY IS ELIGIBLE FOR the new Medicare drug plan, chances are you spent hours trying to find the plan that offered the most coverage with the least out-of-pocket cost for...
The AARP's latest list of the top places to work for people over 50 includes some household names, like Volkswagen of America (#6), drug maker Hoffmann-LaRoche (#10), L.L. Bean (#43), and John Deere (#50).
While half of all baby boomers expect to be working past 65 years old, only about 13 percent of retirees are actually doing so, according to a recent study.
ON A FEBRUARY DAY IN 2005, Tom Mitchell received a panicked phone call from his dad and stepmom in Columbiana, Ohio. Len, 82, and Ruth, 64, told him that their entire $100,000 retirement savings wa...
What careers/companies might consider older people? - Megan
On a February day in 2005, Tom Mitchell received a panicked phone call from his dad and stepmom in Columbiana, Ohio.
Look up "retire" in Webster's and the first definition is "to withdraw, as for rest or seclusion" - or maybe for just going fishing. But more and more, people bowing out of long corporate careers are doing anything but.
Just when you think you're out, they pull you back in.
Yes, growing older does have a silver lining. But not every senior discount beats what young'uns pay. How can you tell a good deal from a crock of Geritol?
He's Jim Aley, he's 40, and, yes, he just joined AARP. Turns out that this organization of more than 36 million members is ready and willing to take in people who aren't "over 50," though that desc...
It was the kind of news a father never wants to deliver. And actually, I got only halfway through the first sentence before my 11-year-old son shouted the rest: "Daddy got fired! Daddy got fired!" ...
As real estate prices in large parts of the country have more than doubled during the past five years, homeowners have found plenty of ways to cash in on their new riches.
Tomorrow seniors can begin signing up for Medicare's drug benefit plan. Whether you're eligible for benefits or your parents are, you may be looking for direction because the choices are overwhelming.
2005's 50 best companies for people over 50, according to the AARP:
Retirement planning is fraught with uncertainty, but one outcome is sure: When we baby boomers wrap up our careers, we're not going to retire to a rocker on the back porch. No, we're going to have ...
Americans pay more for health care per person than citizens anywhere else in the world -- as much as 53 percent more than any other country, according to a recent study published this month in Health Affairs magazine.
Retirement planning is fraught with uncertainty, but one outcome is sure: When we baby boomers wrap up our careers, we're not going to retire to a rocker on the back porch. No, we're going to have a working retirement.
BILL NOVELLI DOESN'T ACT LIKE one of the most powerful people in Washington--he's mild-mannered and informal. But to see the future of domestic policy, there may be only one question you need to as...
If your nest egg isn't big enough to support the retirement lifestyle you aspire to, you may be sitting on a valuable asset that can help you bridge the financial gap: your house.
These 35 employers bend over backwards to recruit and retain older workers, and treat them right, according to the AARP.
A group that has funneled millions of dollars into Republican policy battles is now taking on one of the nation's most powerful lobbying groups -- the AARP -- in the battle to overhaul Social Security, a news report said Monday.
Federal law gives employees returning reservists more rights than ever, but there are still limits. Plus, mentors for women entrepreneurs, and more on opportunities for people over 50.
The AARP signaled for the first time how vehemently it would fight President Bush's proposal for private Social Security accounts, saying it would launch a $5 million, two-week advertising campaign against the plan timed to coincide with the start of the new Congress, a newspaper report said Thursday.
There will be less knitting and daily golf games for baby-boomers in their twilight years. The AARP expects the number of silver-haired entrepreneurs to rise in the coming years. How will this chan...
The traditional view of retirement -- quiet contemplation interrupted by the occasional brisk game of shuffleboard -- has given way to a version that can include anything from trekking the Himalayas to launching a post-career career.
We all know that the traditional view of retirement—a time of quiet contemplation interrupted by the occasional brisk game of shuffleboard—has given way to a version that can include anything from ...
Social Security beneficiaries will see an average of nearly $25 a month more next year under a cost-of-living adjustment announced Tuesday, but almost half of that increase will be taken up by higher Medicare premiums.
By 2030, the number of Americans over age 65 could more than double, putting a strain on the federal budget. But Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan says retirees can lessen the burden by financing more of their retirement themselves.
Money problems plague every age category. We've been focusing on debt problems at different life stages, and today we're looking at how seniors get in trouble.
Finally! After years of enduring an unending litany of downbeat reports on baby boomers' prospects for retirement and suffering countless lectures from finger-wagging pundits talking 'bout my generation's total cluelessness about saving for our golden years, I've come across what appears to be actual positive news.
In a move likely to stoke domestic political flames around President Bush, the nation's largest senior lobby confirmed Tuesday that it will endorse bipartisan legislation to legalize importing cheap prescription drugs.
Among my road rules: Anyone who loves cars must own at least one convertible before he dies. Even if he lives in Duluth.
Among my road rules: Anyone who loves cars must own at least one convertible before he dies. Even if he lives in Duluth.
When AARP threw its weight behind the $400 billion Republican-led Medicare prescription-drug bill now headed for a vote in Congress, plenty of Americans had one response: Huh?!? Many seniors who se...
Chances are these days, your home is your most profitable investment. Sky-high appreciation rates have added hundreds of thousands of dollars to many homeowners' personal wealth.
The me generation has a lot to answer for: go-go boots, the Monkees, smiley faces, Donald Trump. Still, we boomers have gotten many things right. We fixed beer. We put more women in the executive s...
Maybe it's a coincidence, but Washington is gorging on red meat. Carnivores have stormed the capital, and this city is nothing if not adaptive. From Smith & Wollensky to Nick & Stef's, from Angelo ...
Scudder International has had a dismal year. Lead manager Irene Cheng overstayed her welcome in the tech sector, and the fund has fallen 22% as of late November. Still, the fund remains a fine choi...
The Riviera Theatre in Charleston, S.C., is an unlikely place to find the future of medicine. But that's where we found it in mid-May, at TEDMed2, an offshoot of Richard Saul Wurman's regular TED (...
Q. My 82-year-old dad is digging himself deep into debt. He owns a small house in California, collects Social Security and has a modest pension. But he spends a lot more than he takes in. For one t...
First comes the retirement dream: Leave work, head for the golf course, live off your savings and Social Security. Work doesn't really fit in. After all, retirement is supposed to be about not work...
Most leaders of lobby groups are as slick and silver-tongued as the politicians they try to influence. Not Horace B. Deets, head of the most feared lobby in Washington, the American Association of ...
MONEY's reporting on consumer issues has generated a run of interesting mail. Readers have expressed passionate opinions on a range of recent subjects we've covered, including insurance rip-offs, c...
Lately, more and more older home- owners are turning to reverse mortgages to supplement their retirement income. Think of a reverse mortgage as a spigot that allows you to pour your home equity int...
THIS MONTH: --Tips from an ex-broker --Why divorcing your spouse may be harder to do --Bob and Liddy Dole: They'll retire on $5.5 million
THE CASE FOR AGEISM
AGE HAS ITS PRIVILEGES, and not the least of them is that once you hit 50, you can get great discounts on products you buy and places you go. The problem is that many of these deals are unadvertise...
Never in its 37-year history has the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) been under closer scrutiny. In particular these days, the 32.2-million-member group for people 50 and over, found...
The Internal Revenue Service and charities are slugging it out again. Nonprofit groups keep launching new money-raising ventures, like this fall's splashy fashion industry T-shirt sale that will be...
MORE AND MORE THESE DAYS, BEVERLY BERGER, 45, RECALLS FONDLY HOW, AS A LITTLE GIRL, she would make the rounds of local nursing homes with her pharmacist father. "I'd often find him sitting on a ben...
If you have a diversified portfolio, chances are that at least one of your investments -- maybe one you still think will thrive long term -- has soured over the past year. A potential sweetener, ho...
Losing your spouse can leave you not only devastated emotionally but unprepared financially. Sadly, unscrupulous financial planners, insurance agents and stockbrokers who search the obituary notice...
Looking for work when you're over 50 can make you feel like you're Heidi Fleiss trying to sign on as a Girl Scout leader. Just look at the obstacles you face: There's resistance to paying higher sa...
Check it out: a bright, clean room, an extra-long mattress, a sparkling pool outside, a color TV with HBO and a remote that works, free coffee and Danish in the lobby -- all for less than $50 a nig...
You no doubt have found a lot of folks eager for your business these days. There's that persistent broker who keeps calling, for instance, and that smiling sales rep in your bank lobby. You may eve...
Why is it that even if Bill Clinton gets every tax increase and spending cut he wants, the deficit starts widening again after 1996? The answer is disarmingly simple: the elderly. This year the cos...
With the ranks of workers ages 50 and up growing by about 1% each year amid massive corporate layoffs, age-bias complaints filed with state and federal regulators have jumped 28% since 1990 to more...
Free advice is not always worth what you pay for it. And here's the proof: The 29 free or nearly so (top cost: $3) brochures, pamphlets and books listed here can provide valuable information on fin...
In the past 10 years, the cost of the average prescription drug has increased more than 150% -- or roughly twice the rise of inflation. Rather than swallowing that entire price hike, however, cost-...
-- Act quickly if you want to take advantage of today's low-interest-rate mortgages and home-equity loans. Adjustable-rate mortgages, for example, are available at initial rates of 7% or less from ...
Millions of working Americans may have a fresh reason to worry about the looming recession: its effects on their pensions. No fewer than 50 large U.S. companies -- including General Motors, RJR Nab...
Frail elderly people and the disabled increasingly rely on panic buttons -- beeper-size devices they carry in the pocket or wear on a cord around the neck or wrist -- to summon help instantly. By p...
The Supreme Court's recent first-ever decision in a right-to-die case makes the most convincing argument yet for writing a living will. That's the document stating the circumstances under which you...
Le Corbusier, France's foremost 20th-century architect, called a house ''a machine for living.'' For someone who bought one a decade or more ago, when inflation was bumping up prices at annual rate...
A recent survey found that, of the 3.7 million American families now taking care of an elderly relative or friend, more than a third get no assistance from any outside service, agency or home healt...
Face this fact: If you have a parent alive today, you likely have a crisis waiting for you somewhere down the road. Sooner or later that parent will need help. The problem your parent will have may...
Already a powerhouse lobby in Washington, the American Association of Retired Persons may soon emerge as a leader in personal finance. A credit union AARP launched in May is breaking all records fo...
If you're ready to add a growth fund to your portfolio, an intriguing prospect is Scudder Capital Growth, up 11.5% for the first two months of the year -- more than twice the gain of the S&P 500. B...
It is an article of faith in America -- and an explicit mandate of the Bill of Rights -- that no citizen may be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. But consider the fo...
Guardianship is not inevitable even if you eventually become incapacitated. But to stand a chance of sidestepping court supervision, you must draft a solid estate plan with a lawyer's help before i...
Your article ''The Empire Called AARP'' (October) was ambitious and generally fair-minded. Despite your extensive reporting on some aspects of AARP, however, it fell short of giving readers a compl...
In a democracy, any group that claims to represent extraordinary numbers merits close scrutiny. By that standard, then, the American Association of Retired Persons deserves to be one of the most ca...
Like many other nonprofit organizations, AARP needs money. But instead of hawking museum replicas, AARP sells $106 million worth of products and services ranging from angina medications to tours of...
MONEY FLASH Let' s get serious about stock market reform by Jerry Edgerton To restore investor confidence, the major exchanges have proposed new trading rules. But if small investors are truly goin...
EVEN THE MOST self-sufficient person has an occasional twinge or two about living alone. What if there's a medical emergency and you can't get to the phone? To help allay those fears, many older pe...
FACE IT. Chances are there's another job -- maybe even a whole new career -- in your future, even if you won't need the pay. What with longer, healthier lives and earlier, richer retirements, middl...
THINK OF the American Association of Retired Persons as grandfather, very big and very rich. AARP has an astounding 28 million members, almost 12% of the U.S. population, and annual revenues of abo...
MANAGING /Cover Stories
-- Several fortnights ago your correspondent had an item in this space coyly alluding to the fact that he had just turned 63. A few days after that news hit the stands, he received his first mailin...
Funds aren't the only products spreading like kudzu on a Carolina slope these days. So are fund investment newsletters. More than 70 of them now flood the mails, usually monthly; six are devoted so...
Most avid investors believe that you have to spend money to make money. They frequently subscribe to newsletters costing as much as $150 a year and are willing to pay financial advisers up to $125 ...
- An old woman presses a gun to the head of a child who holds a lollipop. ''OK,'' grandma growls, ''just drop it in the bag and no one will get hurt.'' The cartoon, taped to a wall at the modest Wa...
Q. Recently I invested in Series EE savings bonds. On the back of each bond is a declaration that the bond is ''eligible for payment at any time after six months from its issue date.'' Is there any...
The thumbs-up sign that former teacher Rod Harman (right) of Beaverton, Ore. is flashing says it all: Harman is a happy retiree at age 59, financially secure and satisfied with his life's new balan...
THE ACTRESS on the video screen looks 60-ish, well nourished, and confident. She is portraying a consumer, and she talks like no traditional grandma. ''At 65, my mother had become an old woman . . ...
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