Staying Fit
| Many boomer business owners are concerned that the current economic and political uncertainty might interfere with achieving their retirement goals, a survey finds, but they're still confident enough that they haven't changed their plans.
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In a new survey of 1,296 adults with investable assets of $100,000 or more, conducted by TD Bank, 60 percent of boomer business owners cite economic uncertainty as a concern when it comes to their retirement, while 48 percent say that political uncertainty is a worry.
Even so, 87 percent of boomer business owners haven't made changes to their retirement planning, and 94 percent are at least somewhat confident that their long-term plan will enable them to achieve their retirement goals.
Ken Thompson, TD Bank's head of U.S. wealth shared services, noted in an email that 58 percent of boomer business owners consult a financial adviser, which may help them to keep their cool despite the recent volatility.
"Business owners also tend to have a higher confidence in their own ability to create value over time,” Thompson explained. “If they run profitable businesses today, they will likely have experience in the ups and downs that occur during a normal business cycle."
Boomer business owners have done varying degrees of estate planning, with 78 percent reporting that they have a will, while 36 percent have set up one or more trusts to handle their assets. But only 27 percent have a full integrated estate plan, which would deal with issues related to passing on their business to someone else, and 14 percent haven't done any planning at all.
The survey also provided a glimpse of how hard businesses have been hit by the pandemic-induced downturn. Across all age groups, 87 percent of business owners reported that COVID-19 had affected their revenue. Forty-nine percent had to cut back on their operations and 25 percent closed at least temporarily.
