CHICAGO, Feb 19 (Reuters) – Nancy Kessler spent much of her
career as a museum curator, but she also has had a lifelong love
of working with older people. During one stint working with
Alzheimer’s patients, she noticed a gap in one type of
caregiving: “There is a lot of wellness and physical therapy but
not much intellectual stimulation.”

Last year, she decided to do something about that. Following
a layoff at age 58, she launched Memoirs Plus, which specializes
in writing memoirs for seniors. The idea of her business is to
provide her clients with intellectual stimulation and a creative
activity that helps them tell their life stories.

CHICAGO, Feb 12 (Reuters) – More Americans over 55 are
finally getting back to work after the long recession. The
strong national employment report for January released last week
confirmed that. The unemployment rate for those over 55 was just
4.1 percent in January, down from 4.5 percent a year ago and
well below the national jobless rate. The 55-plus labor force
participation rate inched up to 40 percent from 39.9 percent.

That is good news for patching up household balance sheets
damaged by years of lost employment and savings, and also for
boosting future Social Security benefits.

CHICAGO, Jan 29 (Reuters) – Stanford University welcomed 25
unusual students onto its campus this month – all in their 50s
and 60s.

They are the inaugural fellows of a new program, the
Distinguished Careers Institute (DCI), designed for people who
want to follow more than one career path in their lifetimes and
who want to go back to a college setting for more training. It
is the forefront of a new movement for universities to look
beyond typical 19-year-old undergraduates.

Chicago, Jan 21 (Reuters) – Remember Mitt Romney’s huge IRA?
During the 2012 campaign, we learned that the governor managed
to amass $20 million to $100 million in an Individual Retirement
Account, much more than anyone could accumulate under the
contribution limit rules without some unusual investments and
appreciation.

Romney’s IRA found its way, indirectly, into a broader set
of retirement policy reforms unveiled in President Obama’s State
of the Union proposals on Monday.

CHICAGO, Jan 15 (Reuters) – My home state of Illinois is not
the first place that comes to mind for innovative approaches to
retirement savings. We are much more infamous for our pension
plan for state workers, which is the worst-funded in the
country.

But Illinois just became the first U.S. state to adopt a
promising new approach to a big problem in the nation’s
retirement saving system: the lack of workplace saving options
for low-income workers.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Since the midterm elections, President Obama has taken decisive action on immigration reform, climate change and relations with Cuba. Now, the new Republican-controlled Congress has handed him another opportunity to act boldly – by leaving a legacy as a strong defender of Social Security.

House Republicans signaled this week that they are gearing up for a major clash over the country’s most important retirement program. In a surprise move, they adopted a rule on the first day of the new session that effectively forbids the House from approving any financial fix to the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program unless it is coupled with broader reforms. That would almost surely mean damaging benefit cuts for retirees struggling in the post-recession economy.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – John Turner wondered if he should roll over his federal government retirement account into an individual retirement account. So he called 15 IRA providers to get some guidance.

That may sound like overkill, but Turner wasn’t really contemplating a rollover. He was calling IRA providers to test the truthfulness and value of their advice on rollovers from workplace retirement accounts to IRAs.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The last-minute deal to allow retiree pension benefit cuts as part of the federal spending bill for 2015 passed by Congress last week has set off shock waves in the U.S. retirement system.

Buried in the $1.1 trillion “Cromnibus” legislation signed this week by President Barack Obama was a provision that aims to head off a looming implosion of multiemployer pension plans – traditional defined benefit plans jointly funded by groups of employers. The pension reforms affect only retirees in struggling multiemployer pension plans, but any retiree living on a defined benefit pension could rightly wonder: Am I next?

11 (Reuters) – Wall Street banks, automakers
and insurance giants got bailouts during the economic meltdown
that started in 2008. But when it comes to the pensions of
retired truck drivers, construction workers and mine workers, it
seems that enough is enough.

The $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill moving through
Congress this week adopts “Solutions Not Bailouts,” a plan to
shore up struggling multiemployer pension funds – traditional
defined benefit plans jointly funded by groups of employers in
industries like construction, trucking, mining and food
retailing.

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Imagine boarding a jet and heading for your seat, only to be told you’re needed in the cockpit to fly the plane.

Investing expert William Bernstein argued in a recent interview that what has happened in our workplace retirement system over the past 30 years is analogous. We’ve shifted from defined benefit pension plans managed by professional financial pilots to 401(k) plans controlled by passengers.