The ‘Unretirement Crisis’ Is Sweeping America – And Here’s the One Way to Avoid It

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When Tom Brady hung up his cleats in February 2022, his “retirement” lasted less than 40 days.

He was back under center for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 1 of the 2022 NFL season.

Folks called it an “unretirement.”

And millions of Americans are now doing the same thing.

With an obvious difference.

Brady’s return to the gridiron was triggered by his passion for football (his estimated $500 million “nest egg” gives him that luxury).

But that flood of Americans returning to work are “unretiring” out of fear and necessity — those older folks don’t have the cash to stay retired.

Want proof?

The CNBC chart below illustrates how the “unretirement” numbers have surged to pre-pandemic levels, and will likely pass them:


This return-to-work wave has several powerful triggers. Perhaps the biggest: Americans lost $6.8 trillion in stock-and-housing wealth last year, as inflation and uncertainty hammered markets and drained wallets.


It’s traumatic, and the “unretirement wave” could easily become the “Unretirement Crisis.”

But it doesn’t need to be.

Not for you.

Because there’s an answer.

You can’t rely solely on stock prices climbing.

Or your 401k.

And definitely not on Social Security.

You need income.

But not income in the traditional sense — from bonds, money markets, or CDs. You need accelerated income… perpetual income… income that’s predictable and protected so that you don’t have to return to work in your 60s… 70s… or even 80s and 90s.

Today, I want to show you a few strategies that’ll help you do just that.

Money Never Sleeps

One of the easiest ways to generate income is by owning companies that not only reliably payout dividends… but also increase those payouts as well.

Dividend Aristocrats are S&P 500 companies that have increased their dividend payouts every year for at least 25 years. Dividend Kings have been in the “income-paying game” even longer — boosting their payouts every year for at least half a century.

A trio of Dividend Aristocrats that are in our Green Zone — a healthy and investable state — are:

💲 Aflac Inc. (AFL): 2.39% yield, $1.68 in income
💲 J.M Smucker Co. (SJM): 2.87% yield, $4.24 in income
💲 McDonald’s Corp. (MCD): 2.07% yield, $6.08 in income

For the Dividend Kings, here are three members in our Green Zone:

💲 Farmers & Merchants Bancorp (FMCB): 1.73% yield, $16.60 in income
💲 Illinois Tool Works Inc. (ITW): 2.06% yield, $5.24 in income
💲 Emerson Electric Co. (EMR): 2.26% yield, $2.08 in income

If you don’t want to pick individual stocks as income generators, don’t worry.

There’s another option out there.

Income ETFs

A second strategy for income generation is owning ETFs that will pay you monthly income.

Something to be aware of with monthly dividend ETFs is that you should not expect price appreciation as a main benefit. The price performance is normally choppy and can significantly trail behind major indexes.

But the dividend payouts can more than cover any marginal loss from price performance.

One example is the Global X SuperDividend ETF (SDIV), which holds companies that rank as the highest-dividend payers around the world.

It has a massive yield of 13.68%.

And while the yield is a bit lower, one of the “Steady Eddy” income ETFs is the Invesco S&P 500 High Dividend Low Volatility ETF (SPHD). It invests 90% of its assets in stocks listed in the S&P 500 Low Volatility High Dividend Index, which means the fund is centered around stocks in stable industries – like utilities and defense.

It has a very respectable yield of 4.21%.

For a third monthly income ETF option, there’s the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA), which can sprinkle in a little more price appreciation with its monthly income payouts than the first two ETFs covered.

For the year, DIA is up 6.4%, with a dividend yield of 1.92%.