The United States often has millions of jobs vacant, even if millions are out looking for work.
That means if you are retired and looking for work, your odds of finding something usually are pretty good.
However, there are three ways you should consider how your retirement might be affected by going back to work.
Personal identity reinvention
Retirement can be a depressing and emotionally defeating life development because, for many Americans, it’s an involuntary development.
Over 50% of all American workers over the age of 50 were forced into involuntary retirement or laid off from a long-held job due to their age.
It can be emotionally crushing to go from a lifetime of routinely going to work to an abrupt stop to doing a lot of nothing. For many people, a career is a personal identity.
Getting a part-time job or consultation work can help a retiree reinvent themselves and find purpose during the uncertainty of transitioning into retirement.
Augmented retirement savings
Working again after retirement may not be a choice for many retirees.
Over 33% of Americans don’t have a retirement or don’t have any money saved for retirement.
About 48 million Americans are aged 65 and over. However, the average income for most people over the age of 65 is $38,500 or less. And the average 65-year-old has a net worth of $170,000.
And those statistics differ depending upon who you ask. According to the Pension Rights Center, the average 65-year-old made $22,000 annually in 2018, and progressively less money as they got older.
The point is that every extra cent that you make post-retirement can only help with your retirement expenses. The average retiree must make at least $45,000 annually to pay their expenses in a high cost of living city.
Social Security and taxes
If you work and claim Social Security simultaneously you could be taxed on your benefits depending on your age and the number of your benefits.
Social Security also could reduce your benefits if you are over the age of 62 and working. How much Social Security deducts depends on your age and the amount of money you earn.
Social Security has qualification metrics that detail how much of your benefits would be deducted. If you qualified for Social Security as an individual, earned $7,200 in annual benefits, and made a salary over $18,960 then $2,480 would be deducted from your benefits.
It’s not a “loss” per se, as your benefits are delayed until such time that you again stop working or age 70, and that could mean more money later in retirement when you might need it more. But that doesn’t help your immediate calculations in regard to monthly bills!
Better to talk to a Social Security representative about salary maximums to maintain your benefits.
