Looking at Herkimer County Households with Retirement Income by Municipalities

Here are the top five municipalities where households reported receiving retirement income in the past year. Retirement income, based on Census Bureau definitions, includes: (1) retirement pensions and survivor benefits from a former employer; labor union; or federal, state, or local government; and the U.S. military; (2) disability income from companies or unions; federal, state, or local government; and the U.S. military; (3) periodic receipts from annuities and insurance; and (4) regular income from IRA and Keogh plans. It does NOT include social security retirement benefits.

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Here's all of the municipalities, including the towns without their village components, and the towns with the villages included within their numbers...

Preparing for Adequate Retirement Income: How Close Are Retirees in Herkimer County to the 70% Rule?

A recent article by interest.com dealt with measuring people's fiscal preparedness for retirement. The study used income statistics from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey to compare how those of residents age 65 and over are faring against pre-retirement households led by those 45 to 64.

Interest.com chose that comparison because, as they put it, "a rough rule of thumb is that you’ll need at least 70% of your pre-retirement income once you stop working. Some people will need more, of course, but few will be able to get by on less."

What they found was that "Older Americans are making slow but steady gains in income compared with their younger counterparts, but they are still falling short of the levels needed for a healthy retirement in all but one state. It's clear that, nearly everywhere in the country, older Americans still don’t have the kind of money coming in they need for a secure and comfortable retirement,” says Mike Sante, managing editor of Interest.com.

Below is a map of the US that they presented showing the "replacement income ratio" of each state. This replacement ratio is basically the median income of households where the householder is age 65 and over, divided by the median income of households age 45 to 64.Ideally it should be 70% or higher based on the 70% rule mentioned above. New York happens to come in at 54.98%.

Here is a table showing the Replacement Rate for Herkimer County based on the 2012 Five Year ACS Estimates showing the median household incomes for both types of householders (65+, and 44 to 64 years of age) as well as their replacement income ratio. Again, remember that the supposed goal is for older householders to make 70% or more of their slightly younger counterparts. The closer the rank to "1" the higher the county replacement rate. None of the 62 counties reached the 70% rate using the 2012 Five Year ACS Estimates data.

A Look at the Golden Years: Characteristics of Retirees in the Region

While a recent article about the best and worst cities to retire to wasn't particularly kind to the northeast, some still choose to stay in our region once they make the decision to retire. While a myriad of factors are to be considered, our region still has much to offer its older citizens.

Who, however, are those among us that have entered into their Golden Years and chosen to remain locally?

Well, the 2012 ACS Five Year Estimates for PUMS data does allow us to get at least a little insight into who are retirees are. First however, I needed to figure out how to extract at least a reasonable estimation of what a retiree is from the data. For purposes here, the following is basically who I looked at in order to gain insight into the characteristics of retirees.

So as the graphic points out, I took the population of people age 62 or older (typical minimum age for social security access) and then selected anyone who reported receiving a pension or retirement annuity, or that received social security retirement benefits as either a primary recipient or as a survivor.

While the definition is NOT perfect, it does capture a large number of people that certainly are in retirement mode. In fact, 85% of all people age 62 or older are included in this definition - some 37,000 out of about 43,000 people in this age category.

Roughly 60% of all "retirees" are still married, but about a quarter have no surviving spouse - they are widows and widowers.

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As a result, it's not surprising then that 56% of retirees are females.

Racially and ethnically, the retirees are not wholly reflective of the current racial configuration within the region - they are more in line with the racial distribution of their own day, 40 to 50 years ago. Whites make up the vast majority of those retiring in the region - around 86% of all retirees are white. Black retirees are the next largest group, at 11%. Very few other minority races are represented in the retirement crowd. This is mainly the result of their lack of presence in the past within our region. Similarly, only 2% of all retirees see themselves as Hispanic. While at present the Hispanic community makes up more than 4% of the region's population, their influx is a relatively new phenomena, hence fewer Hispanics are nested within the retirement cohort.

Educationally, retirees are a reasonably well educated group. More than a quarter of them have some type of college degree, and one in five have a bachelor's or higher.

As the "Greatest Generation" passes, the current "Baby Boomers" are not without their military experience. More than a quarter of all retirees have served in some capacity in the armed services.

Of course as we age we face many hurdles, some of which are truly disabling. These can include visual issues, mobility issues, hearing and cognitive issues, as well as a host of other conditions. More than one out of every three retirees reported being disabled to some extent.

Similar to the racial and Hispanic retirees, foreign born residents make up a slightly smaller part of the pie among retirees than they do in the current general population. Given the influx of recent refugees to our region this is not particularly surprising.

Slightly more than 5% of retirees are foreign born, and about 6% speak a language other than English while at home. Most are in fairly stable housing settings, with only one out of twenty (5%) having lived somewhere else one year ago.

Retirement, of course, is largely based on your ability to afford it.

According to the ACS data, each retiree averages an income of about $37,000 in the region. This is composed of a variety of income sources of course, two of which are typically a pension or annuity, and social security retirement benefits. Roughly 17,000 retirees (or about 40% of people age 62 and over) drawn from a pension or a retirement annuity or IRA. And nearly 35,000 retirees (or 81% of those age 62+) are receiving Social Security Retirement benefits. Combined, taking into account those that receive both a pension and social security, 36,951 retirees access these income resources.

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Of course there are other potential resources such as personal savings, reverse mortgages, etc., that retirees might also be using to fund their retirement plans.

Transitioning Into Retirement: Metlife Study Finds More “Boomers” Retiring at 65

Despite the popular belief that Baby Boomers will continue to work well past the traditional retirement age of 65, those born in 1946 are retiring in droves, according to Transitioning into Retirement: The MetLife Study of Baby Boomers at 65. This study is a follow–up to the 2008 MetLife Mature Market Institute study, Boomer Bookends: Insights into the Oldest and Youngest Boomers (released in 2009), which looked at the same segment of Boomers at age 62 and includes 450 of the same interview subjects from the original study. 

The study reports that 59% of the first Boomers to turn 65 are at least partially retired – 45% are completely retired and 14% are retired, but working part-time. Of those still working, 37% say they’ll retire in the next year and on average plan to do so by the time they’re 68. Half (51%) of those who are retired say they retired earlier than they had expected. Of those who retired early, four-in-ten say they did so for health reasons. The majority (85%) of respondents consider themselves healthy, and almost all (96%) retirees say they like retirement at least somewhat. Seven-in-ten (70%) like it a lot.

 In Herkimer and Oneida Counties, more than half of the residents age 65 or older are presently receiving some form of retirement income. In Herkimer County 53% of all people age 65 and over receive at least some retirement income; in Oneida County it is nearly 60% of the population age 65 and over. But not all Baby Boomers age 65 and over are retired. As many as one out of every seven residents (14%) age 65+ are still a part of the work force and employed. 

Click here to read the Metlife report on Baby Boomers and Retirement.