After working as an aerospace technician for 30 years, pensioner John Beninger was looking forward to spending his retirement sharing time with his wife and gardening.
But instead of kicking back in the California sun in his golden years and finally benefiting from a lifetime of pension contributions, Beninger is homeless and dependent on his children's charity to live.
"I suddenly had no money left, I couldn't pay my mortgage any more," said the 66-year-old resident of the California city of Fresno as he described how he lost his home when recession wiped billions off the US stock market.
"It was heartbreaking for me and my wife. My portfolio value went down by 80 percent. I had no choice. I had to sell."
The market crash that has left major corporations smarting and smaller ones buckling has dealt an even more cruel blow to America's greying population at the end of their productive years.
Many seniors have lost their family homes, financial security and independence, while some have even found themselves forced back to work, cheated of their long-anticipated leisure years.
"I'm going to be a ward of my children now -- a nice thank you after 30 years in the aerospace industry and being an honorable citizen," despairing Beninger said.
Since the market hit its dizzying peak in early 2000, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Wall Street's main performance indicator, has lost 35 percent of its value while the tech-heavy Nasdaq has been pared by 76 percent.
The market plunge has serious implications in a country where most pensions and savings are not based on fixed benefits paid by employers, but are instead dependent on voluntary workers' contributions that are invested on Wall Street.
The index-sensitive do-it-yourself plan, dubbed the 401(k), has suffered badly as 7.7 trillion dollars were wiped off the market over the past two-and-a-half years, leaving many pensioners living below the poverty line.
Many people approaching retirement age have been forced to keep on working while some retirees have hit the job market again in their twilight years.
Studies indicate that the number of people in the workforce 55 or older has jumped eight percent to 20 million in the last year.
"I will have to work again. I've already embarked on starting a business," he said, said 53-year-old Buck Buchanan, a retired worker in a sprinkler factory that was bought by the ill-fated Tyco group.
Half of Buchanan's holdings were in Tyco stocks which have dropped from 68 dollars when he retired last year to about 12.5 dollars.
"I had enough money set aside in my investments to pay for all of my children to go to a full four years of college. I had it, and now I don't," said the resident of the Pennsylvania town of Devon.
"It was devastating, a very painful experience," he said.
Carl Greiner, a psychiatry professor and grief counselor at the University of Nebraska said that many of those looking forward to their golden years had suffered terrible trauma.
He noted that while younger people had also suffered huge financial losses, they still had many productive years left in which to assure their financial security.
"On the other hand, if you're 65 and owned just telecom stocks, now you're [worried] that you're never going to be able to retire, that you're going to drop dead behind a counter someplace."
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