Millions of Americans who have quit their jobs in the las 20 months as part of the so-called Great Resignation are likely to find their early retirement will turn into “a premature sabbatical.” That’s the view of Ric Edelman, co-founder of Edelman Financial Engines, one of the nation’s largest RIA firms.

The Great Resignation should not be “a surprising outcome” of the economic and social environment but it is “unsustainable and unrealistic” for a great many Americans, Edelman said in an interview last week. The pandemic prompted millions of people around the world to “realize the fragility of life."

Covid-19 impacted wide swaths of the population. While older people, minorities and those with pre-existing health conditions were particularly hard hit, the disease did not spare any groups. “Young, fit people” were also victims as the disease “attacked people regardless of age and income,” he said.

It prompted many people to reflect on “what’s really important,” Edelman, who will be a keynote speaker at Financial Advisor's Advisor Growth Summit on March 23-24, explained. Often the answer was it is “not my job.”

The actual statistics are worth examining. In normal pre-pandemic times, about three million Americans quit their jobs every month. Over the last year, the “quit rate” has been running at about 4.4 million jobs a month. According to studies by the St. Louis Fed, retirements are up about 75% from the two million people leaving the work force annually before the pandemic.

Fanning the flames of discontent triggered by disruptions to everyday life was the “social and political unrest” that occurred, Edelman continued. Lockdowns, mask mandates and later vaccine mandates created an environment ripe for controversy.

In addition to that, there were other forms of widespread social unrest. The Black Lives Matter movement and the “challenges brought on by police killings of unarmed African Americans” drove some Americans to question the viability of our social structure, he said. Riots and demonstrations occurred in cities throughout the country at a level not seen since the 1960s and early 1970s.

If this wasn’t enough, government stimulus payments “generated massive amounts of money for tens of millions of U.S. households,” Edelman said. Many people received greater monthly income from state and local than they did from their prior jobs.

This combination of events “caused many people to say, ‘I don’t like my job, I’m not sure I’m immortal, [and] I’m concerned about my health and safety being in the open,’” Edelman said. The motivations to say “take this job and shove it” were plentiful.

Nowhere was job dissatisfaction more evident than among occupations that form the backbone of a nation’s social fabric. Surveys show that nurses, doctors, police officers and teachers are exhibiting the highest levels of stress and some of the highest quit rates.

The problem may not be going away. In December 2021, a survey conducted by the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses prompted two-thirds to “consider leaving their field,” according to Bloomberg. The same article cited 21% of those polled by the American Nurses Foundation saying they were going to quit their jobs in the next six months. Even before Covid-19 struck, public health officials voiced concerns that the rate of aging among the nation's physicians could precipitate a health care crisis.

Unlike most advisors who focused on the affluent, Edelman spent more than 30 years building his advisory business targeting middle-class and upper middle-class individuals, providing him with detailed knowledge of a much broader segment of the U.S. population. “What many failed to realize is that those stimulus programs were temporary,” he noted.

So was the economic environment of pandemic life that brought rising wealth levels to homeowners with 401(k) accounts. That world of “rising stock prices and real estate prices aND LOW INFLATION was also temporary,” he said.

What those who survive the pandemic may just be learning is that “their longevity is greater than ever,” Edelman said. He predicts they’re “going to discover, some in a few months, others in a few years, that they don’t have the financial resources to stay unemployed.”

While he didn’t say it, the first people to return to work force are likely to be those who return out of economic need. Among the more affluent early retirees, some are likely to re-enter the workforce “because of lifestyle choice,” he said.

Retirement, in Edelman’s view, carries its own attendant baggage in terms of quality of life issues. Research has found “that the average 65-year-old watches 47 hours of television a week,” he said.

Millions of these folks are likely to find themselves very bored. “Whether [or not] they have an economic need to work, they will have a desire to contribute to American society, keeping busy to remain stimulated, be a member of the community” as they discover “watching TV and eating bonbons all day is no way to spend the last 40 years of your life,” Edelman said.

Ultimately, Edelman concludes that the Great Resignation will prove to be a “short-lived and ill-fated experiment.”