by KillingTime56
A commonality to all media stories about retirement and financial independence is the belief that people are living longer. I keep hearing this and reading this over and over. It is part of the media narrative. They must have a financial reason to keep saying this because it may or may not be true.
If you are talking about people living longer from birth, that is false. More young people are dying young because of drug abuse and alcohol. Lots of overweight people who live a terribly unhealthy lifestyle dropping like flies in my hometown.
But what about people who are already 60+ years old and survived the many things that are killing younger people. If someone makes it to 60 are they more or less likely to make it to 90 than someone who hit 60 twenty years ago?
(Maybe a 60-year-old today might live a few years longer than someone who it 60 twenty years ago, but it is likely just a year or two, which would not have that much impact of their success using a 4% rule.)
ADDED: This article says that today’s baby boomer will live just a couple years longer than their parents:
This article says: “But a growing body of research suggests that baby boomers in their 50s and 60s are in poorer health—with more chronic disease and disability—than earlier generations at the same ages”
www.prb.org/are-baby-boomers-healthy-enough-to-keep-working/