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Survey Shows More Americans Are ‘Unretiring’ To Keep Up With Cost Of Living
Plus, the latest in market news.
Happy Sunday, and welcome to Benzinga’s financial advisor newsletter.
Today we're taking a closer look at retirement and why it may no longer be the one-way exit many investors planned for. A new survey from AARP reveals a surprising shift among retirees that raises bigger questions about inflation, income durability, and true retirement readiness. Read on to see what adjustments you may need to make for clients when it comes to their retirement plans.
Plus, a look at all the top stories and market activity from this past week.
Advisor Spotlight: If you would like your company to be featured in our upcoming Advisor Spotlight, click here to send us an email.
INDUSTRY CHATTER
Over the years, retirement has long been treated as a one-way door. You work hard for several decades — saving and investing as much as you can — before stepping away from your career and living the retirement dream.
However, it doesn’t always turn out like that — especially lately as retirement is starting to look less like a permanent phase and more like a flexible one.
According to a new survey from AARP, 7% of retirees — ages 50 and over — have re-entered the workforce in the past six months, up from 6% last summer. Nearly half (48%) of those “unretiring” say they’re doing so because of financial necessity. Another 41% said daily living costs are their primary motivation for working.
Inflation may have cooled from its peak, however, Friday’s hot PPI report showed that getting to the Fed’s preferred rate of 2% is more challenging than most people realize. It’s also no secret that retirees are especially sensitive to rising costs because their income is often fixed or portfolio-dependent. When Social Security cost-of-living adjustments don’t fully offset real-world expenses — and when markets feel volatile — the margin for error shrinks quickly.
For advisors, this trend isn’t just about who goes back to work. It’s about what it says regarding retirement confidence. Health issues and financial readiness remain the two most common reasons people retire in the first place. But the fact that financial pressure is now pulling some retirees back into the labor force suggests that “retirement readiness” may be more fragile than projections implied.
There’s also a behavioral layer worth noting. Not everyone unretiring is doing so out of pure necessity. Roughly 15% cite boredom, and 14% say they want to stay active. For some, work provides structure, purpose, and social connection — benefits that spreadsheets don’t quantify.
Yet going back isn’t simple. Around 67% of retirees believe it would be difficult to find a job, citing age discrimination and health limitations. Nearly 25% worry they could lose their job within a year.
For clients approaching retirement, this data can either heighten anxiety or spark productive planning conversations. For Boomers already retired, it may prompt questions they haven’t voiced yet: “What if my plan isn’t as durable as I thought?”
This is an opportunity to stress-test income plans beyond average return assumptions. How resilient is the withdrawal strategy under prolonged inflation? Where is flexibility built in? Could part-time or consulting work be framed as optionality rather than emergency action?
Retirement doesn’t have to be binary. But clients benefit when the choice to work is proactive, not reactive. The goal isn’t to eliminate uncertainty. It’s to build enough flexibility that going back to work feels like a preference, not a necessity.
Wall Street began the week with a shock.
A research note from Citrini Research sketched an unsettling future: mass unemployment among white-collar workers as AI agents replace human labor at scale. In Citrini's apocalyptic scenario, the U.S. jobless rate surges past 10% by 2028, with weekly unemployment claims approaching half a million.
The report exploded across trading desks and social media. Economists quickly pushed back, arguing that the assumptions stretch economic logic and underestimate the labor market's ability to adapt to technological disruption.
Nvidia's Beat Fails to Calm Investors
But markets trade on fear before they trade on models. The Dow Jones just logged its worst week of 2026.
Even Nvidia (NVDA) — the poster child of the AI boom — couldn't steady nerves.
The company delivered a blowout earnings beat and upbeat guidance. It didn't matter.
The stock fell more than 5% the next day, a striking signal that investor psychology may be shifting from euphoria to skepticism.
Then came corporate confirmation.
On Thursday, Block (XYZ) announced it will slash its workforce from more than 10,000 employees to under 6,000. CEO Jack Dorsey said AI tools and leaner teams are fundamentally redefining how companies are built and run.
For some investors, that sounded more like validation of the disruption Citrini warned about.
Stress Spreads Beyond Technology
Banks and private equity stocks plummeted sharply on Friday, with Wall Street heavyweights including Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS), Citigroup (C) and Wells Fargo (WFC) each posting their worst single-day decline since early April 2025.
The tremors are not confined to tech anymore.
After Blue Owl Capital (OWL) restricted redemptions and tightened liquidity terms in one of its largest retail-focused funds, stress is now mounting in the private-equity sector.
On Friday, MidCap Financial Investment Corp., overseen by Apollo Global Management (APO), cut its dividend and marked down assets by roughly 3%, citing strain in parts of its loan book.
Apollo shares just endured their worst week since April 2025, extending a nine-week losing streak — the longest since 2022.
A Violent Rotation Takes Hold
Meanwhile, sector and style rotation is accelerating as investors increasingly conclude the AI arms race will favor asset-heavy industries over asset-light business models — and companies less vulnerable to automation.
Energy stocks have now outperformed technology for 10 consecutive weeks, an unprecedented stretch.
In the first two months of 2026, value stocks have beaten growth by 12% — the strongest relative start to a year since 2001.
The market isn't just repricing AI.
It may be repricing the entire economic hierarchy.
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THE WEEK AHEAD
Broadcom, Costco, AST SpaceMobile, Sea Limited, Ross, Alibaba, and AutoZone to report earnings, initial jobless claims, auto sales, Fed speeches, and more
Economic Data
Monday: Auto sales, ISM manufacturing
Tuesday: Fed speeches (Williams, Schmid, Kashkari)
Wednesday: ISM services, Fed Beige Book, Crude oil inventories
Thursday: Initial jobless claims, Import price index, U.S. productivity
Friday: Unemployment rate, hourly wages, Fed speeches (Daly, Hammack)
Earnings
Monday: AST SpaceMobile (ASTS), MongoDB (MDB), Norwegian Cruise (NCLH), Plug Power (PLUG), ADT (ADT)
Tuesday: CrowdStrike (CRWD), Ross (ROST), Sea Limited (SEA), AutoZone (AZO), Target (TGT), Best Buy (BBY)
Wednesday: Broadcom (AVGO), Veeva Systems (VEEV), Okta (OKTA)
Thursday: Costco (COST), Alibaba (BABA), Marvell (MRVL), JD.com (JD)
Click here for the full calendar of economic data and earnings reports.
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