Wealth and Longevity

You don’t have to be rich to live a long life, but it helps.  Crain’s Wealth recently summarized several surveys on the subject.  Some of the takeaways:

• According to an AMA study, the richest 1% of women live more than 10 years longer than the poorest 1% of women. For the men, the difference is 15 years.
• In a survey of global investors by UBS, 49% of American respondents hope to live to age 100. However, only 30% expect to reach this goal.  Investors in other countries were far more optimistic.  Some 76% of Germans expect to achieve age 100, as do 68% of the Swiss, 67% of the Mexicans, and 66% of the Italians.
• Health is more important than wealth to 90% of affluent respondents. Those with wealth in the $1 million to $2 million range would sacrifice a third of their fortune for an additional 10 healthy years of life.  Those with $50 million or more would give half their fortunes for that same benefit.
• For 69% of the respondents, their biggest worry about aging is health care costs.
• Although lifespans are increasing around the world, average life expectancy in the U.S. has fallen in the last two years. This may be due to the increased deaths among younger persons attributed to the opioid abuse crisis.

Longer lifespans require larger retirement capital to maintain financial independence.  The sooner one begins saving and investing for retirement, the better the chances of success for the financial plan.