Women Face 21-Year Retirements With 77 Cents on the Dollar, Davis Warns

Q: With more women aging alone, what is the single most overlooked step in planning for a solo retirement?

The most overlooked step is naming — and legally authorizing — someone to act for you if you cannot act for yourself. For women aging alone, the biggest gap is often not saving or budgeting, but decision-making backup. The reporting and supporting material point to a common problem among “solo agers”: many have no spouse or nearby adult child who can automatically step in during a medical or cognitive crisis. Without a durable financial power of attorney, a health care proxy or medical power of attorney, and an advance directive, even well-prepared retirees can leave bills unpaid, care delayed, and major choices pushed into court-supervised guardianship. This matters because women are more likely to live longer, live alone, and need paid care. They also tend to retire with less wealth and lower Social Security income, making any disruption more damaging. Long-term care and health costs can be substantial, and Medicare generally does not cover most long-term care, so someone trusted must be able to manage money, insurance, housing, and care decisions quickly. Experts increasingly frame retirement planning as health planning. In practice, that means choosing a trusted care partner or, if no personal option exists, a professional fiduciary, then putting the legal documents in place before a crisis. For solo retirees, that step is often more important than any single investment choice because it determines who can protect the plan when the retiree no longer can.

1 articles · Updated · Newsweek · Jun 25

A 65-year-old woman today can expect to live about 21 more years—roughly 2.5 years longer than a man—making retirement materially longer and costlier for women.
Women often enter those years with less money: those nearing retirement hold about 77 cents in wealth for every dollar men hold, and the average woman’s Social Security benefit is roughly 80% of a man’s.
Living arrangements and care needs deepen the strain, with about one-third of women over 65 living alone, more than 40% of women over 75 doing so, and roughly 7 in 10 nursing home residents being women.
Davis argues caregiving breaks and lower lifetime earnings leave many women underprepared, and says retirement planning should be treated as health planning rather than a taboo subject.