More Small-Business Owners Delaying Retirement

A Wells Fargo survey reveals that a growing majority of small-business owners do not plan to retire before age 65.   

More small-business owners plan to retire at an older age–fewer plan to retire at a younger age. This is the current state of affairs after the economic downturn, according to the Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index, surveyed in July 2010. Sixty-nine percent of business owners are not planning to retire or cut back on work until age 65 or older. This is a 17 percentage point increase from December 2007 and a 28 percentage point increase from September 2005. Conversely, respondents planning to retire earlier than full retirement age (between ages 60 and 64) decreased to 21% from 27%.  And retiring before age 60?  Only 11% are still holding on to that dream. 

“Many business owners are reinventing their business approaches in order to ensure financial stability for the long-run,” said Doug Case, Wells Fargo small business segment manager. “This often has a direct impact on personal retirement plans and tests the resilience and entrepreneurial flexibility which characterize small business ownership.”  

For more stories like this, sign up for the PLANADVISERdash daily newsletter.

Small-business owners are adaptive people and 62% of them have made changes to their retirement plans since the economic downturn, Wells Fargo said. Yet 68% are still worried that they will not be able to recoup the losses their 401(k)s suffered in the recession. Likewise, fewer respondents, 63% as opposed to 79% in 2007, were confident that they will have enough money to live comfortably when they retire.   

And then there are those small-business owners who do cannot imagine life without their work. Forty-seven percent of respondents reported they never plan to retire unless forced to do so for health reasons, an increase from 40% reported in December 2007. The majority of survey respondents, however, look at retirement as a time to work at something they enjoy doing, on their own terms. 

 

«