Some Philly-area baby boomers are reconsidering their retirement plans amid economic uncertainty

Cynthia “Cindy” Arena was supposed to retire next week, ending her 35-year career as a paralegal.

But she made those plans before President Donald Trump’s global tariffs upended the stock market. In recent months, as Arena watched the balances of her retirement savings accounts fall, some days precipitously, she had second thoughts.

“I just started thinking, ‘I’m scared,’” said the 66-year-old Phoenixville resident. “I lost a lot of money.”

“I’m starting to get some of it back,” Arena added. But “I was raised by a parent of the Depression. I was very mindful of money and saving my whole life. So that’s probably why I can’t let go of the idea” that retirement is not the best choice right now.

Instead, she said, she will keep working her paralegal job two days a week. She’ll still bring in income, while starting to collect Social Security. But she said she plans to hold off as long as she can on withdrawing from her investment accounts.

Nationwide, retirees — and people who had soon hoped to retire — have had to make similarly tough choices. Over a few days in early April, some investors lost $50,000 or more. While AARP reports that nearly a quarter of U.S. residents 50 and older have no retirement savings, people in their 50s and 60s who have been saving for decades saw some of the steepest declines in the April downturn.

In recent weeks, the stock market has rebounded, but uncertainty remains, especially in light of Trump’s talk of new tariffs.

At TrueWealth Solutions in Radnor, Kahlilah Dowe, who typically advises people with between $250,000 and $1 million saved for retirement, said she’s hearing a lot of questions: “‘Should I sell? What should I do with my investments?’”

“‘How do I preserve what I have?’” they’re asking her. “‘Because I don’t know what is going to happen from here.”

Brendan Dooley, president and CEO of Meaningful Wealth Management in Flourtown, said some of his clients are also on edge, despite having between $2 million and $5 million in investments, far more than the nation’s median 401(k) savings of $210,000 for 60- to 69-year-olds.

“Nobody is immune from this,” said Dooley. Even wealthier folks, “they’re not insulated from the emotional aspect.”

They know that the five years before retirement and the five years afterward are a critical time, one sometimes referred to as the “dangerous decade” by financial experts, he added.

During that period, “the returns you get can make or break you having enough money to sustain your retirement,” Dooley said. “Bad market returns in that 10-year window significantly increase the likelihood you’re going to run out of money.”

Some Philadelphia-area retirees are staying the course despite market anxiety.

“What is going on politically has me kind of holding my breath,” said Margie Merlino, 63, of Fairmount. But “for now I’m staying with my plan.”

And there is some historical data to support a “remain calm” approach.

Each year for the past 35 years, workers and retirees have reported roughly the same level of confidence that they will have enough money to live comfortably in retirement, said Craig Copeland, director of wealth benefits research with the nonpartisan nonprofit Employee Benefit Research Institute, which puts out an annual survey on the subject.

In this year’s EBRI survey, conducted prior to the April market swings, 7 out of 10 U.S. workers and retirees said they felt confident about their financial plan for retirement. And in the survey, workers tend to estimate they will retire later than the average age at which retirees report they stopped working. This overestimation is often due to unexpected health problems or layoffs, Copeland noted.

Still, “what we end up seeing is most people seem content in retirement,” Copeland said. “That may not be as optimal as they wanted it to be. But they seem to be able to adjust.”

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In Fairmount, Merlino is as content as ever. She retired last year from a career working on clinical trials, often for large pharmaceutical companies. She always planned to work part-time in retirement, but in a low-stress environment that she enjoyed.

“My work criteria is: If it’s not fun, I’m not doing it,” she said.

She has picked up two part-time jobs, one at Eastern State Penitentiary and another as a Philadelphia tour guide. She moved from the suburbs to the city, where she enjoys walking everywhere.

For now, Merlino is leaving her retirement savings mostly untouched, she said, and waiting to collect Social Security for as long as possible to maximize its benefit. Merlino never considered going back to work full-time, despite having enjoyed her work and being grateful it allowed her to save for retirement.

She’s trying to remain optimistic, reminding herself that investments are a long game.

“I’m definitely more concerned than I was when I retired,” she said. “But not enough to say, ‘I have to trash my plan.’”

For Arena, the Phoenixville paralegal, her retirement compromise — cutting back the number of days she works — will allow her to travel, including to Scotland and Ireland next year, and to strike a better work-life balance.

When she retires, she looks forward to traveling more and diving into volunteer work, perhaps tutoring adults in literacy or helping at dog rescues. But for now, she said, that’ll have to wait.