Stock market

For the first time since the New Deal, a majority of Americans are headed toward a retirement in which they will be financially worse off than their parents, jeopardizing a long era of improved living standards for the nation’s elderly, according to a growing consensus of new research.

Fewer Ohio businesses are offering defined-benefit pension plans, as employers attempt to reduce future funding obligations and shift retirement liabilities to workers.

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.