(Photo credit: Images_of_Money)

By Michael Hiltzik

As if you haven’t been scared enough by the projections that most Americans haven’t saved enough to maintain their lifestyles as they enter retirement, here’s something even more terrifying:

Nearly half of all Americans will outlive their assets, dying with practically no money at all.

Even more worrisome, that’s true even among households that met the traditional standards for secure retirement income. Economic factors and changes in employer pensions and in economic reality have made it much harder to stretch income and assets so they last, especially as people live longer.

“The oldest old are suffering a great deal now,” says Debra Whitman, an AARP expert on the financial issues facing retirees.

The facts are sobering. According to studies Whitman presented last week at a Financial Security Summit organized by the Aspen Institute, Americans ages 75 and older lost one-third of their household financial assets and one-sixth of their net worth from 2007 to 2010, reflecting the devastation of the 2008 crash. Their balance sheets may have improved since then, but obviously they have less time than other age groups to make up the losses.

The 75-plus generation is struggling more than others to keep up. Although most age groups have sharply paid down their credit card debt since 2007, credit card debt among the oldest retirees has risen. From 2007 to 2010, AARP found, the percentage of families 75 and older with credit card balances rose from 18.8% to 21.7%; the rate fell in every other age group

via A crisis for the very old: They’re outliving their assets – latimes.com.