Last weekend, I marched in a couple of Labor Day parades. It’s important to celebrate the accomplishments of working people.
Maybe you gathered with friends and family to grill and eat outdoors. Maybe you took the chance to get on the water one last time this summer. Or maybe you watched your favorite team play a game.
Those are also worthwhile ways to mark the holiday. Not everyone should live to work. We work so that we can live better.
And we have those options because people fought for things like an 8-hour workday and overtime. They fought for weekends off so that they could spend time with friends and family, do something they love, or just relax.
I’ve shared with you how my father chose to keep working until he was 75 ½. My mother retired a couple of months after her first granddaughter was born. I don’t see myself retiring anytime soon. The boys are only 3, and parents know it costs money to raise children. I also love what I do.
Not everyone has a job like mine where I could see myself working well into my 70s, though. Some people are on their feet all day, while others are on their hands and knees much of the day, working hard to put food on the table.
It’s important to support working people so that one day when they want to retire, they can. In the Illinois State Treasurer’s office, we run programs that support workers.
We have Bright Start to help people save for their children’s education and vocational training. We have investments to help companies grow and create jobs. We fight to put money back into people’s hands through I-CASH, and we help them save their money through My Illinois Savings so that they can retire.
I don’t want to tell anyone how long they have to work or when they have to stop. I do want them to be able to make those decisions on their own. And saving is the key to retirement.
If you don’t have a pension or a 401(k) at your employer, or if you have not been saving in an IRA, please check out our My Illinois Savings program. More than 170,000 workers across all 102 counties are saving and growing their money so that they can eventually retire and enjoy their golden years.
If you do the work of saving now, you will have more options later. An investment today will allow you to decide for yourself when you are done working. Like Labor Day, that’s worth celebrating.
Sincerely,
Michael