Cities Ranked: Retirement Readiness

The most prepared and optimistic populations regarding retirement live in three California metropolitan areas: San Francisco, Sacramento, and San Diego. The least prepared and most pessimistic are found in Indianapolis, New York, and Atlanta. These are among conclusions put forward by a new Ameriprise survey.

States Ranked: Financial Literacy and Financial Behavior

The people of New Hampshire are Number One for financial literacy while Alaskans exhibit the Number One best financial behavior according to a study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Louisiana remains at the bottom for financial literacy with West Virginia scoring the lowest for financial behavior.

The EBRI study looked at how well residents in the 50 states and the District of Columbia scored on questions about financial literacy, i.e., understanding basic money concepts, and financial behavior, i.e., the actions they take to shore up their finances and prepare for retirement.

Ageless Homes

Wid Chapman and Jeffrey P. Rosenfeld recently published the book Unassisted Living: Ageless Homes for Later Life. One of the questions they address is “What do aging baby boomers want from housing that's different from previous generations?”

According to the authors, one of the defining characteristics of boomers is that they want to push the boundaries and rethink the rules. “Gone is the idea of heading south at a particular age.”

What makes a house suitable for aging?

• Grab bars

• A lack of thresholds, especially regarding entrances and showers

• Surfaces that don't create glare from sunlight

Streamlined interiors minimizing furniture and slippery surfaces

Think-tank Civic Ventures suggests America’s most vigorous future entrepreneurial spirit will likely come from folks in their retirement years. According to a Civic Ventures study, one in four Americans between ages 44 and 70 wants to build an enterprise – and nearly half of them want it to be a business with a strong social impact.

Civic Ventures calls these respondents ‘encore entrepreneurs.' They challenge the assumption that the second half of life should be spent playing endless rounds of golf and basking in Florida sunshine.

AARP Social Security Benefits Calculator

AARP has announced the launch of its Social Security Benefits Calculator, a unique interactive tool designed to help people decide their best age for claiming Social Security benefits in the context of their financial goals. To try out the new AARP Social Security Benefits Calculator, visit www.aarp.org/socialsecuritybenefits.

Turning 65

Approximately 10,000 Americans turn 65 every day.

Wanted: Old Hands

The oil and gas industry is facing a shortage of engineers with enough experience to take on project management roles. As a result, many firms are bringing people back from retirement on a project-by-project basis.

Don’t Fight City Hall

The City of Philadelphia has sent warning letters to about 2,500 retirees or their beneficiaries who are receiving city pension checks but owe the City nearly $13 million for unpaid real estate, business, and other taxes.

According to federal law, the City can grab up to 25 percent of their pension checks as long as tax bills go unpaid. A threat to do so has been included in the warning letters.

The average debt owed by this group exceeds $5,100.

Veterans’ Supermarket

A free, one-day veterans’ benefits "supermarket" and health fair will take place in Dalton, Georgia on December 7, 2011. It’s the fourth such “supermarket” held in Dalton. It is open to veterans in Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama.

The supermarket includes seasonal flu shots and free medical screenings for veterans, along with information from agencies such as Military Retirement Services, Social Security Administration, Small Business Administration, the Georgia Department of Motor Vehicle Safety, state and federal departments of Labor, state Department of Human Resources, state Department of Natural Resources and a medical facility representative.

Losing Leadership

Seventeen percent of Canadian companies expect to lose more than half their current leadership within the next five years, according to a Leger Marketing survey.

"The baby boomers are retiring, and the generation following them is only 50 per cent as large," says the Canadian chair of executive-search firm Odgers Berndtson. "We're rapidly moving from a talent-rich world to a talent-scarce environment, and that's going to impact everything that organizations do in terms of leadership."