Lengthening life spans mean that more people will make it to age 75 and older—at which point, says the report, physical and mental health problems grow, creating a faster and larger drain on savings. (Photo: Fotolia)

A new brief from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College finds that not only will retirees face higher out-of-pocket health costs but also the potential for financial mistakes thanks to cognitive decline and the problems caused by widowhood.

This as more-meager 401(k)s supplant pensions and the Social Security retirement age rises.

Indeed, the report points out that as retirees become more reliant on 401(k)/IRA lump sums, which can be considerably smaller overall than the lifetime benefits presented by a traditional pension plan, and as the full retirement age for Social Security rises, meaning that “monthly Social Security checks will provide less relative to preretirement income at any given claiming age,” future retirees as they age are going to be making do with less reliable income even as inflation eats away at what they have.