Dependent Young Adults
Parents in America continue to help children who are 22 to 29 years old. They are reducing their retirement savings to do this.
A recent article on MarketWatch reports:
When you help your adult children — unemployed or not — it saps your retirement coffers. Data released by personal finance site Bankrate found that half of parents with adult kids say that supporting them was detrimental to their retirement savings, and fully 17% of them say it had a significant impact on their retirement savings.No wonder: Every year, parents spend twice as much on their adult children as they do on contributing to their own retirement accounts: That’s $250 billion they put into their retirement accounts versus $500 billion in support to adult children, Merrill Lynch estimates.
Meanwhile, elderly parents are likely to become financial burdens on their children. Support money flows out at both ends of the savings portfolio.
Most families have insufficient retirement funds.
The median retirement savings in America is just $70,000, according to the TransAmerica Center for Retirement Studies. And while those most likely to have adult children are faring slightly better — Gen Xers have $71,000 and boomers $157,000 — that’s still far from enough to retire for most people. In many cases, even $1 million won’t be enough to retire comfortably.
The money dribbles out, one plea at a time.
Just say no.