5/15/2015 – Will Your Retirement Plan Provide Enough Income? (CNBC)

Financial experts are questioning long-held assumptions about the best approach to investing as retirement nears. With life expectancies on the rise and fixed-income investments generating little in the way of actual income, many experts are starting to recommend that savers allocate less of their money to bonds and related assets than they used to think was optimal.

“You are likely going to need a higher level of equity exposure in retirement than previously has been used as a rule of thumb,” said Katherine Roy, chief retirement strategist for JPMorgan‘s asset management unit.

Lengthening retirements are a key contributor to the shift in thinking by Roy and others. While there remains a troubling gap in life expectancies for minorities and whites, overall, American life expectancies have increased substantially, from 71.8 for men and 78.8 for women in 1990 to 76.2 for men and 81.0 for women as of 2010.

A woman age 65 in 2010 could expect to live 20.3 more years, up from 18.9 for a 65-year-old woman in 1990, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Remaining life expectancy for her male counterpart in 2010 was 17.7 years, compared to 15.1 years in 1990.

Read the full article at CNBC.