We had a Plan A for retirement, emphasis on "had"; it was a good one. Plan B was in force after loss of living wage work, loss of home, legal debt-relief that does not include student-debt (you'd think TPTB would at least try to keep people who have it employed-- but no, they consider it more important they collect repayment instead of families eating or having shelter), loss of insurance (many kinds), and reduced credit scores that impact renting/car insurance costs, and/or purchasing anything over $100 and then came the horrors of IMPOTUS and CoVid 19...it's bad out there!
Your Dad is not alone in being trapped into early retirement. Worse still, he absolutely won't believe who he will meet as co-workers in the less-than-living wage gigs he may come to require. Sometimes that will be others in a similar circumstance, but more often the more youthful and totally unaware as he attempts to augment a "semi retired" income with that less-than living wage gig, should that be a necessary option.
Don't know what your dad did, but "age discrimination" is real and rampant. DH was a vet (Viet Nam era) with "preference" (hahaha) with what then amounted to a parent-paid corporate-sponsored (Litton) vocational "Associate" degree and had years of IT experience behind him. I have a debt-free academic Associate degree from a community college. Since the 80s and through the 90s we've chased "career opportunities" in every major city of our State. Despite keeping up with the changing technology (mainframe vs PC) after age 40, all these "career opportunities" became 1099s without healthcare, life insurance, or earned time off. He's been out-sourced, re-orged, right-sized, made redundant by mergers and acquisitions, resulting in cancelled contracts - only a few ever lasted a full year. He's got volumes of documentation about his "career" job searches. He's been laid off 3 times just from the low-wage jobs taken in retirement so far. At one point in the last decade, out of 5 adults in our family, I was the only one working, until I wasn't.
One of DH's co-workers asked him this past week what 9/11 was all about; never heard of the World Trade Center towers in NYC, the plane at the Pentagon or the field in PA. UNBELIEVABLE! He's also met felons, high-school drop-outs, the drug-addicted, the high dollar lottery players in dirty clothes and uncombed hair. He's daily meets the "regulars", the unmasked, the angry MAGATs, and the smokers at the gas pumps while working his SS-augmenting "essential" position at a gasoline-selling convenience store in a rural area at the edge of suburbia where the beer flows out like water and unsold food gets pitched. It's the education one never had and doesn't wish to know.
HEADS UP: For yourself, even more so if you are an only child, do you live in a state-mandated "familial responsibility" state? If so, you are legally required to assist an elderly parent "make it" financially. (Not saying that you would not, you understand). I've read that this is rarely enforced by the State, but still, it's codified and you can be sued for lack of assistance.
If you don't know, he'll need important documents as he moves into retirement. NOW is the time to plan: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/essential-legal-documents_b_6833046
I hope with all my heart that you and your dad will find the resources he'll need as he ages in place. Good luck!
EDITED FOR GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION - Sorry.
= new reply since forum marked as read
