
Older Americans who live in RVs and drive from one low-wage job to another - joeyespo
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/many-older-americans-are-living-a-desperate-nomadic-life-2017-11-06
======
billmalarky
"We saw in the 1980s a shift from pensions to 401(k)s; that was a raw deal for
workers. These retirement plans were marketed as an instrument of financial
freedom, but they were really transferring risk from the shoulder of the
employers to the backs of the workers."

This is misleading. 401k's are considerably lower risk since they allow you to
be diversified instead of putting all your eggs into one basket (ie a company
retirement pension).

The problem is the amount of money going into a standard 401k is nowhere near
the amount that went into a pension. You had pensions paying out amounts that
would require a 401k account with $1MM+ in it. The standard company 401k match
these days isn't even peanuts compared to that, and that's if the company even
matches at all.

~~~
andrewvc
The other problem is that 401ks let you do dumb stuff pensions don't. Dumb
stuff like pulling most of your funds in the 2008 crisis and holding it in
cash to miss out on the rebound. Or investing in borderline scam products like
variable annuities.

401ks are great if you're savvy. They are massively inefficient for society in
that they require all the people who use them to understand investing.

This is really bad policy at a society level. People need real, unbiased
investing guidance.

~~~
jdavis703
At what point does personal responsibility kick in? Every 401(k) I've been on
has given the option of investing in funds that ramp down risk exposure as the
fund's target retirement date comes closer.

Literally all you need to do is put your $1400/month in to a retirement
account and not touch it. If you're upper middle class this is not hard to do
(again I'm not talking about poor people here, but those with money who aren't
saving).

Whenever our 401(k) report comes out at work I can tell that most people are
not putting nearly the amount of money they should be into savings -- and this
is a tech company so most everyone aside from interns are being generously
compensated.

~~~
throwawaybbqed
I think education is an important factor. I'm nearing 40, make a lot of money,
but have no idea how to optimize my 401k. When I ask co-workers, they are more
ignorant than me. I changed companies a few times and have tranches of cash in
each of their 401ks.

~~~
jdavis703
Well if you don't mind me asking, what kind of annual returns are you
generating? If you're in the 7-8% range you're probably about as "optimized"
as you can be, assuming your 401(k) is only giving access to large index
funds.

Another trick you can use is switch to a Roth 401(k). It means you'll be taxed
on your savings today, but when you retire they'll be tax free. Now this is
total speculation here, but I'm kind of assuming taxes will be pretty high in
the coming decades as we try to keep social security going and pay down
deficit spending, not too mention dealing with climate change fallout.

Also good for you on keeping all your money in the 401(k) accounts, some
people cash them out when they change jobs which triggers penalities and
taxes. If you can however, I would roll all your accounts in to one giant
401(k) so you can better keep track of what's going on.

~~~
throwawaybbqed
I have like 20K in a 401K when I worked at Microsoft a long time ago. This is
around the 2008 fiasco. I just converted everything to cash. I didn't do a
rollover when I changed employers (I think there is some time limit which I
have likely exceeded). I've been trying to figure out if I can make use of
that cash. The confusion is that the plan I was in was for Microsoft
employees. Can I still use their plan's investment options?? I also don't want
to incur any tax implication ... literally the cash has been sitting there for
years because I am too stupid to figure out all the details. It is just sad :(

~~~
jacalata
This is at Fidelity, right? You can still use the exact same investment
options as when you were a Microsoft employee, you just can't add to the
account. The Microsoft 401k has some of the lowest fee investment options out
there, so when I left MS and analyzed my options, I decided to leave my money
in there instead of rolling it over. Do you have a NetBenefits account for the
website? If not, you'll have to call Fidelity, but they should be able to sort
you out pretty easily.

~~~
throwawaybbqed
Thanks ... this is useful info. I was thinking I'll park the cash in a low-
cost market tracking fund. I think markets are overvalued now but better to do
this now than waste another decade :/

------
ProCynic
I have an aunt and uncle who do this, but they aren't desperate, they're
retired. They travel around the country, visiting places they'd like to see,
and taking seasonal jobs as something to do and to help defray expenses. They
still own their own house, but they choose not to live there, renting it out
to their kids / their kid's friends. They've worked as lighthouse keepers,
Amazon warehouse pickers, and as bookkeeping/maintenance for a sugar-beet
picking operation (they're a little old for field work). Currently they're
wintering over at the Grand Canyon while working at the general store in an rv
park.

The point is not all of these nomads are forced into it by desperation or
financial necessity; some of them just want to spend their retirement
traveling and don't mind a little work along the way.

My aunt and uncle have a blog detailing their travels if anyone is interested:
[https://whatsnewell.blogspot.com/](https://whatsnewell.blogspot.com/)

~~~
FooHentai
I hear you, but care must be taken not to dismiss the plight of these people
simply because there are those who seek a similar situation by choice. Doing
something because you want to versus doing it because you have to can make the
same thing a pleasure or torture. Both perspectives are legitimate.

I'm currently looking for a suitable property to live off the grid, and move
to more of a subsistence lifestyle (the usual stuff, veggies, few animals).
But I realized that the exact same end state is pretty bleak if it's something
you were born into.

------
sandworm101
There is a steady stream of these articles describing this as a problem of
older people. It isn't. This is about poor people. There are plenty of non-old
people living our of RVs, or worse, chasing seasonal work wherever they can
find it. An RV is a huge step up from a tent. This is one slightly more
pathetic version of an increasingly common story: our modern economy isn't
addressing poverty. Poor people of all ages are falling off the cliff. They
need help. They don't need classes on writing resumes. They don't need tax
breaks. They need cash and a place to live near a reasonable job.

------
markshead
I drove by a closed Amazon.com warehouse in Kansas a few weeks ago. Next to it
is a RV campground that is still operating. If you look around on RV websites
you can find quite a few reviews from people who went there and other
Amazon.com locations to work like this. Those reviews mostly paint a very
different picture than what is described in the article.

For many of the Amazon.com camper/workers it was a way to do a lot of work in
a few months to help support their retirement travel and the people who were
actually doing it seemed to think the pay was pretty good--especially with the
overtime.

------
chiefalchemist
> "For one thing, Amazon should pay its workers more and give them better
> working conditions. It’s laughable that the workers get a 15-minute break
> when they have to spend it walking to the break room. It’s completely
> insane."

Perhaps the rest of society should be more aware of the darkside(s) of the
business models they are supporting?

Plenty of multi-nationals - Nike comes to mind - have been pressured into
making changes to practices that were not socially acceptable.

Why isn't Amazon being held to the same measuring stick?

Editorial: Why is the public still so naive about the "hidden costs" of
cheaper? Certainly, Walmart (for example) and its darkside would be fresh in
the minds of the American public. Instead, it seems, the perception is Amazon
is the saviour (from Walmart), when the new boss is really the same as the old
boss (sans the glossy high tech paint job).

~~~
konschubert
Because structural problems can not be solved on the individual level.

We will not end world hunger by eating less. We will not stop climate change
by turning off the light more often. And we will not fix exploitative
employment practices by voting with our wallet.

The cynic in my thinks that the "vote with your wallet" slogan has been coined
by those who want to prevent better regulation.

All these things CAN be solved by passing laws and regulation and by building
a society that supports and enforces those.

~~~
mikestew
_The cynic in my thinks that the "vote with your wallet" slogan has been
coined by those who want to prevent better regulation._

Upvoted for that sentence alone. We have government because I can’t build a
road by myself. I also can’t individually smack a company upside the head and
tell them “cut it out, this isn’t the society I want to live in”.

~~~
closeparen
"I don't want to live in a society where people have to $thing, so let's ban
$thing and punish the companies involved in it" is approximately the most
destructive fallacy of our time. Making upper-middle-class the minimum
allowable lifestyle doesn't give everyone an upper-middle-class standard of
living. It just punishes those who don't already have it.

We're going to keep ratcheting up the minimum allowable job, housing, food,
etc. until a tiny minority of liberal elites are congratulating each other for
having eradicated exploitation and all the liberated victims of exploitation
are unemployed, homeless, and starving.

I don't want to live in a society where people have to live in RVs and work in
Amazon warehouses. But banning Amazon warehouses (or RVs) isn't going to help.

We need redistribution, retraining, a real social safety net, healthcare, etc.
so that _people actually have better options_ than exploitative employment
situations. Then it isn't even necessary to ban them, because no one would
want them anyway.

~~~
pedasmith
More destructive than, "oil companies can spill oil anywhere" (Nigeria) or
"let's kill everyone from the 'wrong' ethnic group" (Rwanda) or "let's exploit
orphans" (Ireland)?

~~~
closeparen
Those things are clearly evil and clearly demand a response.

The "let's ban symptoms and coping mechanisms" bandwagon, on the other hand,
gives citizens who are concerned about a situation the feeling that they're
helping, disarming and distracting them from actually constructing a better
world. The collective loss to society of the solutions that could be built but
aren't is quite large.

Imagine if we had single-payer health care instead of more regulation on
employer-employee relationships. Imagine if we had public housing instead of
regulation stonewalling private development. Imagine if we actually built
world-class public transportation systems instead of just starving out the
parking. Etc, etc.

~~~
hiram112
Agree with you.

I think the whole ObamaCare fiasco is one of those things that the typical
millennial liberals on HN have gotten entirely wrong.

For years, the mantra here has been that all those red state deplorables who
were wary about government health care were voting against their own
interests, and ignorant for not wanting it.

 _Trust us. We know better than you._

Well now we've seen what's happening. Premiums have skyrocketed for average
workers and everyone has been moved to high deductible plans that pay for
nothing.

My own insurance had gone from decent to worthless, and it costs twice as
much. As a single guy who makes a high income, it's no big deal. For many of
my coworkers who have a spouse and 3 kids, it has been devastating. And it's
getting worse as more states drop plans.

~~~
ZenoArrow
The problem with the ACA isn't that everyone can get coverage, the problem is
that insurance companies are still involved. The idea of designing a solution
where private companies are free to profit from the basic operations of a
public service is bonkers. They add nothing of value, and will only push
prices up. I could've told you from the start that the ACA was doomed to
failure, and I come from a country that has socialised healthcare and has
benefited from such a system.

Take health insurance companies out of the picture, and address price gouging
by pharmaceutical companies, and you'll almost certainly see costs come down.
I'm pleased to see there has been some momentum for single payer, so the US
can scrap the ACA.

On a side note, ACA was similar to a plan proposed by Republicans back in the
90s:

[http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/15/...](http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2013/nov/15/ellen-
qualls/aca-gop-health-care-plan-1993/)

~~~
chiefalchemist
Yes. But they also charge more because they can. Healthcare is not special.
It's like any other limited resources. That is, increase demand and the price
goes up.

On the other hand, lower demand and prices will fall.

As it is we're getting older and intentionally living a more unhealthy
lifestyle, but expecting prices to fall?

No doubt there are vast disfunction in the current system. However, the
biggest - literally - component of that system are the humam seeking / needing
care. What's more unhealthy, those people or the insurance companies? I can't
see the line between the diabetes dot or the smoking dot and the insurance
companies.

~~~
ZenoArrow
> "Yes. But they also charge more because they can. Healthcare is not special.
> It's like any other limited resources. That is, increase demand and the
> price goes up."

If you're talking about pharmaceutical prices, there are ways around that. For
example, drugs that are FDA approved and available elsewhere in the world for
a lower price should be able to be legally imported and sold at that lower
price. To give an example of how this could be implemented, there was a bill
that was proposed to allow drugs from Canada to be imported and sold:

[https://www.pharmamanufacturing.com/articles/2017/senators-p...](https://www.pharmamanufacturing.com/articles/2017/senators-
propose-bill-for-canadian-drug-import/)

This bill was for the same drugs that legally available in the US, but sold at
a cheaper price in Canada.

[https://twitter.com/sensanders/status/819404681806016513?lan...](https://twitter.com/sensanders/status/819404681806016513?lang=en)

By increasing competition from imports, drug prices can come down. Also,
allowing generics to come to market faster for the most commonly used drugs
(i.e. cutting down the time for which a single pharmaceutical company has a
monopoly on producing a drug) is another approach that can stop pharmaceutical
companies from over-inflating drug prices in the US.

------
Overtonwindow
Articles like these frighten me. In my thirties, I am deeply worried about
retirement, if that ever comes, and surviving in my old age. So much can go
wrong. Ever since I read David Raether's story[0] of going from half-a-million
a year as a TV writer, to homeless living in a van, I've focused considerable
effort to make sure I am never homeless.

I invest in a Roth IRA, I own a home that I rent out, I joined a church to
build more ties in the community, and I spend a lot of time staying out of
debt, and building savings.

If you are in debt from credit cards, the single greatest thing you can do for
your future is to get the hell out of that debt!

[0]. [https://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to-
fail/](https://priceonomics.com/what-its-like-to-fail/)

------
jondubois
It's interesting reading this because I also feel like I've been living a
desperate, nomadic life.

There was a period of time in the past 2 years when I didn't have a home and
stayed at various places on AirBnb while working remotely. The worst part was
when I ran out of money because opportunities dried up on the work platform I
was using. At the time I was in Russia with a dependent partner; we had gone
there because of the low cost of living brought on by US sanctions. So I can
relate to the feeling of being constantly forced to follow the money wherever
it takes you. It's stressful and disorientating.

I don't understand how anyone in their 50s can sustain this lifestyle without
going insane.

------
ourmandave
I always think of the remake of _Little House on the Prairie_ series where Pa
had to walk for 6 days to the nearest city to find work when the farm wasn't
making it.

Not the same thing but sometimes you have to go where the work is.

------
brandonmenc
From a Wired article [0] about one of the couples she talks about:

"Objects they couldn’t bear to part with—including Chuck’s letter from Ray
Kroc, framed and hanging on the wall—went to one of Barb’s daughters for
safekeeping. (Barb and Chuck each have three kids.)"

They have SIX adult children.

They should be living with family instead of trying to survive hand-to-mouth
out of an RV.

[0] [https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons-
nomadic...](https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons-nomadic-
retiree-army/)

~~~
alphonsegaston
What makes you think their children are any better off?

The tech industry is engineering these kind of labor conditions for their own
profit. Try blaming them instead of the families of poor people.

~~~
brandonmenc
I don't think anyone should have to live like this, and I'm not blaming anyone
for being poor.

But I don't believe that purchasing, repairing, and fueling an RV so you can
live paycheck to paycheck is easier or more affordable than sleeping on your
(yes, possibly also poor) child's couch.

I get that there are people who are truly alone and have no other option - but
the people with adult children seem to be indulging a stubborn desire to live
independently, when what they should be doing is pooling resources.

I'm not saying it's right that there are people so poor that they have to live
in multi-generational homes just to survive, but I also won't be shocked into
sympathy for people trying to live like this when it's not their best
available option.

I've seen plenty of older people refuse to move in with family when its time
to, it always ends in disaster, and it's infuriating.

It wouldn't surprise me if a significant portion of these poor boomer nomads
didn't actually _have_ to live like this.

------
crypticlizard
This seems like an extension of the sharing economy where people expect less
and less from a job.

~~~
convolvatron
its seems a general extrapolation of a purely free market economy where if you
cant bootstrap yourself into the bottom of the investor class by the time you
get old for whatever reason, you're essentially human trash

------
baybal2
Our generation of people born in late eighties and later, will not see the
same comfortable retirement that a better off part of boomer generation.

You effectively have to run your own pension fund to expect any much
significant passive income after you retire.

------
lamarpye
I wonder if there is some hidden law driving down the price of unskilled
labor?

~~~
Kluny
I think it's just a commodity. The price of unskilled labor rises and falls
with the vagaries of the market, and anyone who relies on it too much gets
burned like Alberta got burned when oil crashed.

------
madengr
People not saving for retirement is a huge problem. Average 401k balance is
about 1/5 of where it needs to be.

[https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.financialfixation.com/singl...](https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.financialfixation.com/single-
post/2017/02/09/Average-401k-Balances-by-Age-and-State%3f_amp_=true)

~~~
jnbiche
Some of you are very out of touch. They're not saving for retirement because
_they can 't_. First, most of them were not even working jobs with 401k's
available. Second, how the hell are you supposed to save when you don't even
have enough money to pay your current rent, food, gas, medical expenses? I
think some of you imagine _everyone_ is making $80,000-$200,000 a year and
they're just being irresponsible and not saving up money because they live
beyond their means.

In fact, the number of people who don't have enough for retirement because of
this reason is quite small. Most people are there because they or their family
had a catastrophic medical event, job loss, and/or some massive loss of value
in their home due to the depression (from which they've never recovered).

~~~
madengr
No, people are too lazy. Making $25k a year, and saving 15% ($3,750) over 45
years at 7% return is $1M.

You also don’t need a 401k. You can do a traditional or Roth IRA.

~~~
jnbiche
What happens when you come down with an illness that leaves you with a $15,000
medical bill and a month out of work (so you probably lose your job)? Happens
to people all the time.

Have you tried raising a family on $21,000 a year, even in a low-cost area?
(not to mention an urban area, where such earnings are quite common)

Lazy? Wow.

~~~
madengr
Sure it happens to people all the time, but in average it does not.

No I have not. No one should even start a family on $21k. Again, poor choices
if they do. I’m tired of the mentality of victim hood.

------
dogruck
Sounds like this book has an unfortunate bias of victim hood.

Lost your mortgage? Not your fault.

Didn’t save for retirement? Not your fault.

Only job prospect, after working and training and networking for your entire
adult life, is moving boxes in an AMZN warehouse? Not your fault.

I prefer a more objective view, like Studs Terkel’s classic book, Working.

Finally, don’t get me wrong — I have neighbors in the described situation. I
care about them. I’m just saying I’d enjoy reading an objective narrative
about their hard, and unfortunate situation — something not clouded with the
tone of victimization.

~~~
pwinnski
People who lost their retirement investments in the 2008 crash aren't
suffering from an artificial feeling of victimhood. They're victims.

~~~
markshead
How did people lose their retirement investments in 2008? Most of the stories
I've heard where people lost all of their retirement around 2008 involved
doing things were considered fairly risky before 2008 hit. Were there people
who lost all their retirement who were following typical retirement investment
strategies?

Edit: And to be clear, I know the value of almost everyone's investments went
down, but unless your money was all in a single company it seems that most
diversified portfolios bounced back.

~~~
vevoo
"How did people lose their retirement investments in 2008..following typical
investment strategies?" Well, you can follow those strategies until fear takes
over. I know of a graduate scholar that got scared, got her money out when you
saw how her investment accounts went downwards. You keep the cash, fearing
that if you invest again you will loose all. You see how the market goes up,
but you do not believe on it again. Or the sunk cost fallacy...or risk
aversion with an overestimation of risk.

The more financial AND emotional intelligence you have the less likely you are
to fall into such life.

But let's have empathy because the majority of people have less financial
intelligence and cold blod as the average hn reader. Let alone the chance of
earning a very good salary for a few decades.

~~~
markshead
I'm not trying to downplay the plight of people who lost a lot of money in
2008 and I'm not trying to say "well it is their own fault" to trying to
justify not feeling bad for them.

However, I think it is entirely reasonable to assume we will someday
experience another similar event. If there was something about this event that
caused some people who were following sound retirement investment strategies
to lose all of their savings, I wanted to know about it. That is why I was
asking.

