zu früh alt zu spät schlau

zu früh alt zu spät schlau translates out to ‘Too Soon, Old. Too Late, Smart’

For most older Americans, life in retirement is being upended by bankruptcy - and sometimes homelessness.

Vanishing pensions, soaring medical expenses, inadequate savings, stagnant incomes have been accumulating the inevitable outcome years.

The rate of people over 65 filing for bankruptcy has tripled since 1990. And Trump/Ryan etc. are hurting oldsters the most of any recent leadership!

Driving the surge is a three-decade shift of financial risk from employers to individuals, who bear ultimate responsibility for their own financial well-being. "Trickle Down" has "Trickled Up" wealth to the top .5%

The transfer has come in the form of the "shell game" replacement of employer-provided pensions with 401(k) savings plans and disappearing health care. The average retiree outlives their 401k!

The study, from the Consumer Bankruptcy Project, shows older people with precarious finances having fewer places to turn. “When the costs of aging are off-loaded onto a population that does not have access to resources, something has to give,” the study says. “Older Americans turn to bankruptcy court.”



Deborah Thorne, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Idaho and an author of the study said: “It doesn’t even take a big thing.”



These forces affect most Americans, but older people are less able to weather them, according to Professor Thorne and her colleagues. Finding and keeping a job is hard enough for an older person. Taking on a second job to pay unexpected bills is almost unfathomable.



Bankruptcy can offer a fresh start for corporations, but for older Americans it “is too little too late.” In order to file, one’s wealth, and home equity, has to be exhausted and oldsters do not have enough time remaining to ever recover.