Many Americans head into their retirement years with little rigor in their planning, and then they find themselves nursing a bundle of regrets. Those regrets are about not saving more earlier in life, not investing in long-term care or annuities, and dipping into their social security payments much too early.
许多美国人在进入退休年龄时，他们的计划并不严谨，然后他们发现自己背负着一堆遗憾。这些遗憾是关于没有在生命的早期储蓄更多，没有投资于长期护理或年金，以及过早地投入社会保障金。
How widespread are those regrets, and how can people plan more smartly for their retirement? That is the focus of a new paper titled “Financial Regret at Older Ages and Longevity Awareness” by Olivia S. Mitchell, Wharton professor of business economics and public policy, and Abigail Hurwitz, a professor in the department of environmental economics and management at Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
这些遗憾有多普遍，人们如何才能更明智地规划自己的退休生活？这是沃顿商学院商业经济学和公共政策教授奥利维亚·米切尔（Olivia S. Mitchell）和耶路撒冷希伯来大学环境经济与管理系教授阿比盖尔·赫维茨（Abigail Hurwitz）发表的一篇题为“老年和长寿意识的财务遗憾”的新论文的重点。
“There’s a widespread belief that many Americans have not saved enough for retirement,” Mitchell said in a recent episode of the Wharton Business Daily radio show that airs on SiriusXM. (Listen to the full podcast above.) “Despite that, they’re still retiring too early, and then they’re living a very long time. Our hypothesis was that people might be undersaving for retirement because they really don’t understand how likely they are to live a long time in retirement.” Mitchell is also executive director of Wharton’s Pension Research Council.
“人们普遍认为，许多美国人没有为退休储蓄足够的钱，”米切尔在最近一集的沃顿商业日报广播节目中说。（收听上面的完整播客。“尽管如此，他们仍然过早退休，然后他们活了很长时间。我们的假设是，人们可能为退休储蓄不足，因为他们真的不明白自己退休后长期生活的可能性有多大。米切尔还是沃顿商学院养老金研究委员会的执行董事。
The research was based on a controlled randomized experiment conducted in 2020 on 1,764 respondents aged 50-plus. While earlier researchers explored people’s expressed regret for not saving more earlier in life, Mitchell and Hurwitz went further and covered other areas relating to the financial decisions people make. They examined whether older Americans also regret not insuring better, claiming benefits and quitting working too early, and becoming financially dependent on others.
该研究基于 2020 年对 1,764 名 50 岁以上受访者进行的一项对照随机实验。虽然早期的研究人员探讨了人们对没有在生命早期储蓄更多的遗憾，但米切尔和赫维茨走得更远，涵盖了与人们做出的财务决策有关的其他领域。他们研究了美国老年人是否也后悔没有更好地投保，申请福利和过早辞职，以及在经济上依赖他人。
The study found that 57% of participants regretted not saving more, 40% regretted not buying Long Term Care (LTC) insurance, 23% regretted that they did not delay claiming social security benefits, 33% regretted not having purchased lifetime income payments, 10% expressed regret for having to depend financially on others, and 37% regretted not working longer.
研究发现，57%的参与者后悔没有多储蓄，40%后悔没有购买长期护理（LTC）保险，23%后悔没有延迟申请社会保障福利，33%后悔没有购买终身收入支付，10%后悔不得不在经济上依赖他人，37%后悔没有工作更长时间。
“People might be undersaving for retirement because they really don’t understand how likely they are to live a long time in retirement.”
“人们可能为退休储蓄不足，因为他们真的不明白自己退休后长期生活的可能性有多大。— Olivia S. Mitchell — 奥利维亚·米切尔
Preparing for Retirement 为退休做准备
The study showed that providing people objective data on their likely longevity does alter their self-reported financial regret. Giving people information about objective survival probabilities more than doubled the regret expressed about not purchasing long-term care, and it also boosted their regret by 2.4 times for not purchasing lifetime income, the paper stated. “We conclude that information provision can be a potent, as well as cost-effective, method of alerting people to retirement risk,” the authors added.
该研究表明，向人们提供有关他们可能长寿的客观数据确实会改变他们自我报告的财务遗憾。该论文指出，向人们提供有关客观生存概率的信息，使人们对没有购买长期护理的遗憾增加了一倍以上，并且还使他们对没有购买终身收入的遗憾增加了2.4倍。“我们得出的结论是，信息提供可以成为一种有效且具有成本效益的方法，提醒人们注意退休风险，”作者补充道。
A major reason older people end up with financial regret is because they had “inaccurate perceptions of longevity when they made key saving, benefit claiming, and insurance decisions,” the authors stated. An important policy takeaway is that providing people with objective longevity information when they make key financial decisions could help them avoid making mistakes and hence avoid regret in later life. The authors also concluded that older adults could use such information to revisit their purchase of long-term care insurance and annuities. “Better understanding of these risk management tools could substantially strengthen financial resilience in old age,” they added.
作者指出，老年人最终在财务上感到遗憾的一个主要原因是，他们“在做出关键的储蓄、福利索赔和保险决定时对长寿的看法不准确”。一个重要的政策要点是，当人们做出关键的财务决定时，为他们提供客观的长寿信息可以帮助他们避免犯错误，从而避免在以后的生活中后悔。作者还得出结论，老年人可以使用这些信息来重新审视他们购买的长期护理保险和年金。“更好地了解这些风险管理工具可以大大增强老年人的财务弹性，”他们补充道。
Mitchell said it is important to start saving young for a variety of reasons. “If people don’t start saving for retirement when they’re young, they don’t get to benefit from compound interest and the ability to diversify their investments across a whole variety of different assets,” she explained. “And then they’ll find it very difficult to retire at any reasonable age if they don’t start saving as young as possible. They need to save 20% or more of their income every year.”
米切尔说，出于各种原因，开始拯救年轻人很重要。“如果人们在年轻时不开始为退休储蓄，他们就无法从复利中受益，也无法将投资分散到各种不同的资产中，”她解释说。“然后，如果他们不尽可能早地开始储蓄，他们会发现很难在任何合理的年龄退休。他们每年需要储蓄20%或更多的收入。
“It’s very important to save as much as you can,” Mitchell continued. “What you don’t see, you won’t spend. Therefore, when your money is socked away in your retirement account, you will adjust your consumption naturally to the amount of money you see.”
“尽可能多地储蓄非常重要，”米切尔继续说道。“你看不到的，你不会花钱。因此，当你的钱被存入你的退休账户时，你会自然而然地根据你看到的钱量来调整你的消费。
“We must educate our children and grandchildren on budgeting, planning and uncertainty, and risk management, not only for the work-life, but for retirement as well.”
“我们必须教育我们的子孙后代制定预算、规划和不确定性以及风险管理，不仅是为了工作生活，也是为了退休。”— Olivia S. Mitchell — 奥利维亚·米切尔
Investing in Financial Literacy
投资金融知识
According to Mitchell, there is “huge misinformation and financial illiteracy about the way Social Security works.” People have “only a vague idea” that the longer they wait to claim their Social Security benefits, the more they will receive – but the information that is available on that could be more helpful, she added. “The rulebook for Social Security is over 2,000 pages long. No wonder mere mortals cannot necessarily get it perfectly right. Not only do we need more financial literacy in the population, but we also need to slim down the rulebook and make it clearer and cleaner so that people can make the right decisions.”
根据米切尔的说法，“关于社会保障的运作方式存在巨大的错误信息和金融文盲”。她补充说，人们“只有一个模糊的想法”，即他们等待领取社会保障福利的时间越长，他们收到的就越多 - 但可用的信息可能会更有帮助。“社会保障的规则手册长达2000多页。难怪凡人不一定能完全正确。我们不仅需要更多的金融知识，而且我们还需要精简规则手册，使其更清晰、更干净，以便人们能够做出正确的决定。
One easy way to prepare people for retirement is to impart more financial literacy at the workplace. “Employers are increasingly finding it in their best interest to educate their employees, so that the employees don’t have debt collectors calling them at work, hounding them about credit cards and so on,” she said. “In terms of the longevity risk, giving people more information about how long they might live is absolutely essential to making the right decisions over your lifetime, so that when you get to be in your 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s, you have a decent nest egg to live on.”
让人们为退休做好准备的一个简单方法是在工作场所传授更多的金融知识。“雇主越来越发现，教育员工符合他们的最大利益，这样员工就不会在工作时被收债员打电话给他们，追问他们信用卡等等，”她说。“就长寿风险而言，让人们更多地了解他们可能活多久对于在你的一生中做出正确的决定是绝对必要的，这样当你在60多岁、70多岁、80多岁或90多岁时，你就有一个体面的巢穴来生活。
In addition, Mitchell said it is important to prepare the younger generation – from high school or earlier – for the realities of retirement planning. “We must educate our children and grandchildren on budgeting, planning and uncertainty, and risk management, not only for the work-life, but for retirement as well.”
此外，米切尔表示，让年轻一代（从高中或更早开始）为退休计划的现实做好准备也很重要。“我们必须教育我们的子孙后代制定预算、规划和不确定性以及风险管理，不仅是为了工作生活，也是为了退休。”
