http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/older-workers-head-retirement-—-and-dont-retire
I just cannot compute the stats here. I could see if the reporting was wrong, and it was less than 50 percent of Americans total (because younger folks presumably have less saved). Or if a good chunk of the over-50 crowd had pensions they weren't reporting as money saved. My impression is otherwise though not from facts I researched or anything, so that impression could be wrong.
Never mind how an apparently successful lawyer can somehow not afford to retire as he enters his 70s!
I barely ever had more than that in my first 11 years out of college, and was right around that point at age 32. But I knew I was fucking up all along and it only took a little while after that to get damn serious. To still be there (or lower) at 50 is incomprehensible.
I truly fail to understand how people can get that far along in life without ever totally rethinking their approach. Yeah, a handful of these cases surely involve totally unforeseen and unavoidable disasters. But most are simply the consequence of lifelong choices.