Gen X, 65 million Americans born between 1965 and 1980, is fast approaching retirement, and unlike the boomers before them, they're the first generation whose retirement rests on a 401(k) rather than a pension. Only 14% of Gen X workers have a traditional pension, compared with 56% of baby boomers.
And as latchkey kids, Gen X grew up to be the workhorses: the generation most likely to define themselves by output and impact, and the least likely to ask for help. Just 26% of Gen Xers work with a financial advisor, compared with 43% of boomers. These two facts drastically change what retirement looks like for this generation.
Which is why, for many, it doesn't feel like an invitation. It feels like a threat to their identity — and a challenge unlike any they've faced: turning decades of savings into an income stream. A hurdle where they may have to ask for help — something they're not used to doing.
The biggest retirement shift in a generation is starting to happen and once again, nobody's watching. A generation sandwiched between the boomers and the millennials, Gen X built careers in the gaps, ran companies from the middle, grinding away while everyone else got the headlines.
I should know. I'm a Gen Xer. Born in 1967, I'm a bona fide latchkey kid. My mother was a registered nurse, and every day after school I unlocked the door for myself and my two younger siblings, got us a snack, and watched The Brady Bunch. I built my career from the ground up and spent more than two decades in the 401(k) industry, helping Fortune 500 companies design their plans—then retired four-and-a-half years ago.
If you spend time with Gen Xers nearing retirement, you'll likely hear this line: "One more year." But it's not a plan—it's a stall. "One more year" is two questions in disguise—one about money, one about identity.
Net worth gets all the attention in retirement planning. But self-worth is the other barrier, the one nobody talks about, and it holds people back just as much. Solve for both, and "one more year" becomes this year.
I know because this would have been me had it not been for a voluntary buyout offer I received. Former colleagues — older than me, and after decades as senior executives, likely better positioned to retire than I was — didn't take it. Many expressed to me they didn't know how they'd fill their time and it was easier to keep working than to deal with those existential questions.
Gen X has no pension-eligible retirement date. That 401(k) balance, large or small, never reads "this is enough." It fluctuates with the market, and raises daunting questions: Annuitize? Bucket strategy? Stay in plan or roll to an IRA? Convert to Roth? When to take Social Security?
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