6 Questions Married Women Should Answer About Retirement Income

Married women face a special retirement planning challenge that’s best addressed when they and their spouse transition into retirement. Here’s the problem: When one spouse passes away, the survivor’s retirement income usually drops much more than their living expenses do. This often results in the phenomenon I’ve called the “retired widow’s money crunch.”

Most of the time, the surviving spouse is the wife, since women are often younger than their spouses and tend to outlive men by a few years.