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.”