Photo by Jerry Sowden - Office manager Colleen Karnish shares a report with Cas Karnish, branch manager of LPL Financial of Oil City.

With the dicey economy giving rise to financial worries about next week, next month, next winter, it is difficult for many to even think about retirement.

But think they must, according to Casmir Karnish, branch manager of LPL Financial of Oil City.

"People don't plan to fail - they fail to plan. The main problem with retirement is people fail to plan," Karnish said.

Even Dennis Hopper, perhaps the least likely of baby boomers to preach caution and foresight, has been tapped by one company to urge those of his generation to devise a plan for their golden years.

And while industry experts expect boomers to redefine retirement as the stuff that dreams are made of, those 78 million people heading into retirement will also face challenges their parents could not even imagine.

With life expectancy on the rise, retirement might well last 25 to 30 years.

While Social Security data shows the life expectancy for men to be 74 and for women to be 79, the data does not accurately depict the likely length of retirement, because the numbers are based on life expectancies at birth, Karnish explained, citing the Society of Actuaries Annuity 2000 Mortality Tables.

Citing retirement data collected by the Hartford insurance company, a man who is 65 has a 49 percent chance of living to 86 and a 26 percent chance of living to 92, he said. For a woman aged 65, she has a 49 percent chance of living to 89 and a 23 percent chance of living to 95.

While boomers may have longer retirements to look forward to, they must find ways to fund those retirements when traditional sources of funding are drying up.

Unless changes are made, the Social Security trust fund will be exhausted by 2041 and will pay 75 cents on the dollar of scheduled benefits, according to Michael J. Astrue, commissioner of the Social Security Administration.

Employer-provided pensions are growing increasingly scarce, with only 13 percent of workers covered by pensions in 2004, compared to 59 percent in 1983. On the other hand, 63 percent of workers were covered by 401(k) plans in 2004, compared to 19 percent in 1983, according to an Employee Benefits Research Institute report.

Many of those planning to retire expect to work longer before retiring and to work in some fashion during retirement, with other possible funding sources including savings and other income.

And while the funding must stretch to cover a longer period of time, it must also increase to keep pace with rising costs.

"Prices will rise dramatically over the next 30 years," Karnish said. He pointed to one chart predicting that by 2037, gasoline will cost $9.58 a gallon. The same chart, however, shows gas prices at $2.30 a gallon in 2007, a figure that has already nearly doubled.

Healthcare costs are the biggest expense for retirees - and those costs keep climbing.

While the general rule of thumb for retirement planning suggests that a person will need 70 to 90 percent of their annual income during each year of retirement, it depends on individual needs, circumstances and goals, Karnish said.

"There are so many variables when planning for retirement, it is very difficult for the average person," he said.

The complexity, combined with the fear factor, often result in avoidance of the planning process.

"They put it off until later and later and later," Karnish said.

A plan will help remove many of the uncertainties from the retirement picture, he said.

"Any plan is better than none," he said and added that it is "never too early or too late" to come up with a plan. "You need a retirement plan - even if it's not perfect," he said.