The Daily Money: COVID's early retirees no longer say they'll come back
Good morning! It's Daniel de Visé with your Daily Money.
Some Americans took the pandemic as their cue to retire early. Last year, Paul Davidson reports, many were mulling a return to the workforce, casting themselves as potential saviors of a labor market beset by severe worker shortages.
No longer.
Just 14.2% of retirees say they plan to go back to work, down from 18.2% in February 2022, according to a survey last month by Morning Consult, a decision intelligence and research company. Among those who quit in the most recent two-year period, 29.1% say they’ll come back, down from 34.4%.
Perhaps more tellingly, 60.5% of retirees say they wouldn’t return to work under any circumstances, up from a low of 48.1% in May 2022, the Morning Consult survey shows.
Many have settled into post-career routines, and the forces that were luring them back, such as high inflation, a hot job market and tumbling 401(k) balances, have abated, at least to some extent, says Jesse Wheeler, senior economist of Morning Consult.
The upshot: Don’t count on retirees to solve COVID-related labor shortages that persist in industries such as health care and education, despite easing substantially across the nation.
A simpler FAFSA's coming. It won't necessarily make student aid easier.
A simplified student financial aid form finally will be launched by year-end, Medora Lee reports. But it comes with a string of delays that will make getting financial aid anything but simple, experts say.
The new Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) for school year 2024-25 will be shorter than in the past (just 36 questions compared to 108); allow you to transfer tax data directly from the IRS; and include new formulas that should grant more aid to more students.
However, its availability to students and families comes about three months later than the usual Oct. 1 date, with the information sent to schools even later. Schools can begin receiving aid eligibility information by the end of January, the Department of Education said.
The delays, experts warned, mean students and families will receive their aid offers later and must decide more hastily which college to accept and put a deposit on by the May 1 deadline, in the best-case scenario. In the worst case, students may end up leaving money on the table, experts say.
"I do worry that the compressed process is going to result in students missing out,” said Shannon Vasconcelos, Bright Horizons College Coach, a unit of child care operator Bright Horizons.
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McSpansion: McDonald's plans to open roughly 10,000 new locations, with 50,000 worldwide by 2027
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McDonald's, already the world's largest burger chain, announced plans to open an additional 10,000 restaurants around the world over the next four years, in what will be the fastest period of growth in the company's history.
The announcement came Wednesday during a McDonald's investor update. According to a press release, the company is aiming for 50,000 restaurants by 2027.
McDonald's says it already operates at least 40,000 locations globally.
Of the new restaurants, 900 will be in the U.S., and the other 1,900 will comprise international, company-operated and franchised stores in Canada, Germany, the U.K. and Australia. An additional 7,000 stores will open internationally that are operated by licensees, the Associated Press reported, with more than half of those stores in China.
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Each weekday, The Daily Money delivers the best consumer news from Paste BN. We break down financial news and provide the TLDR version: how decisions by the Federal Reserve, government and companies impact you.