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How can I prepare myself for the future if they don’t allow me to do it?

Francisco Miraval

It is clear I will not be able to retire anytime soon and it also seems it will be difficult for me to retire even in the distant future, several decades from now because, according to new report, Latino workers have significantly less opportunities than other workers to prepare themselves for retirement.

The report, recently published by The Bell Policy Center in Denver, focuses on Colorado. However, I have no doubts the situation is similar in many other states. Basically, according to the report, Hispanics have 40 percent less possibilities than other groups to save money during their working years to achieve financial independence in retirement.

The problem is not that Hispanics are not working. Of course we work hard during long hours. The problem is that most of the time we work for companies offering no retirement plan, one of the easiest ways to save money for retirement.

If to that problem we add the fact that Hispanics earn on the average 30 to 50 percent less than no Hispanics and that Hispanics always pay more for health, car, and life insurance than no Hispanics, then the situation becomes so complicated that no even working full time we can save for retirement.

The challenge rises to a new level, according to the report, when we also take into consideration the impact that not having enough resources for retirement has on the children of those workers unable to retire financially independent.

This is the reason: when the financially dependent parents are no longer able to work, their children, being good children, will help their parents. However, helping the parents means the children will not be able to save for their retirement. So, when they eventually retire, they will need the help of their own children.

In other words, not having enough money for retirement, not being financially independent as older adults, means we are creating a cycle of poverty for the next generation, because our children will face the same problem we are now facing.

It not that we are not working or we don’t want to save, but the tools and mechanisms for saving for retirement are usually not being offer to us during our working years by the companies employing us.

At the same time, as the report indicates, White workers have 30 percent more chances than other workers to retire with the money they need because they usually work for companies offering retirement plans and other alternatives for saving.

So, in a very real sense, we are being excluded from retirement plans and that’s quite a challenge. But there is a greater challenge, because we are being excluded not only of having money for the future, but from the future itself.

We are so focused on solving the challenges and urgencies of the present, understandable so, we pay no attention to the emerging future, which is going to be totally different from whatever we know now. In that future, retirement will be the least of our concerns.

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