Even before the COVID-19 pandemic pounded the economy, research had shown that maybe four out of 10 Americans retired before they had planned.
This fact comes from Scott Wardell, an Eden Prairie financial planner and adviser who in 2013 published "Retiring in Turbulent Times," walking readers through the financial lives of nine families who had just come through the Great Recession.
As for why so many older people stop working before they had planned, the number one reason is that they lost their job and getting a comparable one seemed impossible at that stage of life, Wardell said. Others either confronted a health crisis of their own or needed to quit working to care for a family member.
The reason why there are so many books about retirement finance is because do-it-yourself money management and retirement planning are really hard tasks, even if a person easily has enough income to make a secure retirement possible.
Not always being able to pick your own retirement date is just one challenge.
Older workers generally have fared pretty well in recessions, with either formal or informal seniority working for them. And that's been true so far in 2020, with younger and less educated workers accounting for the most job losses.
Yet it doesn't take long for losses to spread to others. And a job loss or closing of a business in late career can lead a person into forced retirement.
Some of this shows up in the Social Security data, as periods of higher unemployment get people to file for benefits earlier, many as soon as eligible in their early 60s. Social Security claims jumped during the recession in 2009 before settling back down.