Delaying retirement

Nonretired Americans' expectations about which sources they will rely on to fund their retirement differ significantly by their annual household income.

Readers recently submitted questions about pension plans to Mary Williams Walsh, a business reporter for The New York Times who has written about how companies manage their pension plans; what happens when companies go bankrupt; public workers’ pensions and how they may affect state and local finances; and Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy.

John Greene worked for 30 years at an Oscar Mayer plant in Madison, Wis., deboning hams and loading boxes of hot dogs. His plan grew to $60,000, and soon after retiring he began withdrawing $3,600 a year from it, money that allowed him and his wife to take what he called a wondrous two-week trip to Scotland, his ancestral homeland.

Another reason, besides the housing bust, that Americans nearing retirement age may have suffered most from the financial crisis: The typical American 55 to 64 years old has a household income almost 10 percent less than it was when the recovery officially began three years ago, according to a new report from Sentier Research.