Below are some vignettes that attempt to tell their stories and what "retirement" has turned out to be for them. In the months to come, I'm planning to come back to this subject occasionally.
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It's all about being with other people
"I come here to be with other people," said
She spent 24 years as a
In addition to
"I was thinking of the future, of what I would need over time," she said.
"You never know what unexpected expenses you'll face once you retire," she added, citing a new roof, furnace or car as examples.
Not everyone who comes to PrimePlus is as lucky. Most of the people she's come to know are not as comfortable as she is, she said.
Divorced, with four grown children, she owns a home near
After getting some classroom experience in
Before her retirement, she began taking tai chi classes at PrimePlus, which she goes to five days a week.
"Now, I'm the teacher," she said, noting that it's on a volunteer basis.
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With health problems, a career can suffer
"I was too sick to work."
That's what
He had spent about 40 years in the drapery business, working for small, family-owned companies in
At the end of the '90s, he got sick for a long time, a period that lasted for about a decade.
While he had a 401(k) retirement plan and other savings -- "I had it all," he said -- whatever money he had accumulated didn't last very long.
"I blew all of that on medical," he said.
That's what happens when you're not working and you don't have health insurance, he added.
When uninsured people are hit with medical bills, including prescription-drug costs, they pay dramatically more out of whatever they have left in their pocket compared with those who are insured, Cohen said. That's why life savings can evaporate so quickly.
Single, with no children, he now depends on
Three days a week he goes to PrimePlus, where he spends a lot of time in the program's wood-working shop.
When he was well enough to go back to work after illness forced him out of the labor market, he got a job at Home Depot, which he said he loved.
"I could help people -- and my hobby is home improvement," he said.
He lives in
"It's not easy living on
He cited rising Medicare premiums, which are deducted from
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Giving back
He wasn't at
He volunteers now and then in the wood-working shop at PrimePlus, a building he got to know well during his 12-year stint working with the city of
Later, he helped
Originally from
In 2004, he began working for the city.
He retired two years ago.
"I've got my three-legged stool," he said, with income from savings he put away and investments he made over the years through sheer discipline, as well as
"I've got a little money here and a little over there," he said.
Widowed, he has a stepdaughter. He owns his home in
Along with volunteering at PrimePlus, he's a member of
What continues to draw him back to the senior center is the social engagement it offers, as well as an opportunity to "give back."
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In retirement, she continues a life spent on her feet
Though she spent nearly 25 years in a series of jobs in
In addition to the money she makes at PrimePlus, she depends on
She's also on Medicare now.
She's had four knee replacements -- one on her right and three on her left, because of complications from arthritis. That knee can't take any more surgery and she's going to have to live with it, Marshall said.
"I've been on my feet all of my life," she said, acknowledging that the accumulated wear-and-tear probably had a lot to do with her knee history. "All of my jobs were standing up. I can't sit down and work. I like to move around."
Married at the age of 16, she was divorced a year later. She had a daughter, who died 10 years ago, at the age of 33, of a heart attack.
Her only other child -- a 25-year-old son -- works at a restaurant in
Marshall lives in an apartment near
She manages to get by.
"You sit down and you budget all of that out and everything's going to be just fine," she said.
There is little, if anything, left over to take trips or to enjoy occasional outings.
"But I don't care for that," she said. "As long as I can be comfortable."
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Pay the bills or pursue a passion
In
His take on retirement?
"What happens is you're not setting the alarm clock, so you get up later and later; you start watching TV, you get distracted," he mused. "The next thing you know the day is over with and you haven't been out of the house. Then all of a sudden, it becomes easier to stay in the house than to get out of the house."
He wanted none of that.
A
"I poorly planned, financially," he said.
Before joining PrimePlus, he worked virtually all of four decades -- 20 years each -- at the
He has pensions from each, as well as money from accompanying savings plans, though he raided them occasionally over the years.
During his 20-year stints with the
"It just happened," he said.
The couple, he adds, were "living life, not planning their life."
Today, the two pensions generate about
While Batcher could consider retiring, he plans to wait to collect his
And to keep working.
There are, when you get down to it, only two reasons for doing that: either to pay the bills and/or to pursue a passion.
In his case, it was not about the money but about being plugged in, connecting with community and helping others to do the same.
"I've got to be busy," he said. "That's why I decided to look at a third career as an alternative to retirement."
Reflecting on his previous career experience, he has no regrets.
"Who else can say that they coordinated mermaids?" he asks.
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"I refuse to let inaction keep me home"
When
They'd tell her that because she loved to read so much, she should retire and get a part-time job in a bookstore.
"And I said, 'Hmmm? If you want me to keep working, why would I give up the money I'm making with the government to go work in a bookstore?'
"So that's why I stayed till 69."
Now 75, she retired with 35 years of government service. She's fairly comfortable, probably toward the high end in terms of financial security compared with some of her friends at PrimePlus, where she spends hours in the arts-and-crafts room and loves the social engagement.
Divorced, she has two children, five grown grandchildren and two "greats" -- great-grandchildren. She owns her home, in the Bayview section of
And, of course, she's on Medicare, too.
"All of my needs are met, and I have discretionary money I can, you know, play with -- 'play money' I call it," she said.
Her only regret is that she didn't save more, taking advantage of the government's offer to match up to a certain percentage of what workers set aside in the 401(k)-type retirement plan -- the "Thrift Savings Plan," as it's known -- made available to them.
While having had access to that kind of plan was great, "nobody ever said it's a third of your retirement," she said.
She put some money into the fund but didn't realize that she was, in effect, leaving money on the table by not participating more.
"I could have done a lot better," she said.
Hall doesn't look to PrimePlus for anything more than companionship and social interaction.
"That's the biggest draw," she said, adding that she's saddened sometimes by how other people her age spend their days.
"I've got a couple of friends that are retired and just sit home," she said. "And they are aging before your eyes. You know, I have one that just doesn't want to get out of the recliner."
She's taken a stand that way: "I refuse to let inaction keep me home."
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"Basically, you didn't think about retirement"
Back in the day,
"We'd sit in the bleachers," he said.
That was at a time when people didn't have 401(k)s, he said.
Today, the ex-
"My ping-pong got better when I got here," he said.
Hewitt spent 27 years working in the maintenance department at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in
Ask him for his cell number -- an old flip phone he doesn't use very much -- and he pulls out a small, crinkled address book that looks as though it could have been carried by a soldier in the Civil War.
After a minute or so of looking for his number, sifting through tiny pages streaked with assorted lead markings and ink blots -- he finds it, cautioning not to call him much before
Because he spent much of his working life on the midnight-to-
Hewitt is married, with three daughters, 11 grandkids and two "greats," he said.
In addition to the pension he gets from the MTA, his wife gets a pension, too, from
He considers their financial situation to be about average -- better than some of the other regulars at PrimePlus -- but he says they didn't save enough.
His wife's name is Omega: "It means the end," she said, laughing.
The Hewitts pay about
"Basically, you didn't think about retirement, what you were going to do, where you were going to go," Tom said. "You had your family and your family was your main responsibility. You were caring for your daughters and seeing that you could provide for them."
Hewitt gets around with the help of a walker -- he survived a stroke that affected the left side of his brain.
But he's still agile and healthy enough to slaughter challengers at the ping-pong table.
Among the secrets to his success: "You don't have to use the slam shot all the time."
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