Retirement

Like many middle-class American baby boomers, Linda Carmona-Sanchez is anxious about slipping into poverty and says whatever dreams she once had about retirement in her "golden years" have turned into nightmares.

Seventy-five percent of Americans have never had a conversation about long-term care with loved ones. In the shadow of the possible demise of the CLASS program, this is even more pertinent to employees who may have retirement accounts, but not a backup for immediate long-term care assistance.

Be they young or be they old, people across America are worried about their financial prospects in retirement and the economic direction of the nation, a survey of Gen X, Gen Y and baby boomers by The Guardian Life Insurance found.

The Internal Revenue Service has released a detailed list of pension plan and other retirement-related contribution limitations for the Tax Year 2012 that were triggered by an increase in the cost-of-living index.

While many employees obtain benefits information from their employers, another source of information, at least for Gen Y (ages 18 to 34), is family members and friends, according to survey results from Colonial Life.

You now have a strong advocate, retirement advisers. Read in the November issue of EBA as contributor Fred Barstein talks about the recent launch of the National Association of Plan Advisors, a sister organization of the ASPPA.

It's not surprising that the youngest generation of workers has saved the least toward retirement. But what is startling-and worrisome-is the fact that the savings rate for this group has fallen significantly in the past decade.

Around the time they turn 50, many people unconsciously begin to ratchet up their spending. Instead, prominent retirement planning scholar Alicia Munnell thinks financial planners and employers need to wage a campaign to get their clients and employees to hit the pause button at this crucial midpoint in their lives.

The younger the customer, the more they will want a guaranteed income after retirement is the first takeaway for insurers from a Prudential survey about retirement planning.

Social Security retirement benefits for about 55 million people will go up by 3.6% next year, the first cost-of-living increase since 2009, the U.S. Social Security Administration said last week.