Just a few months ago, University of Wisconsin-Madison zoology Professor James Pawley was hoping to keep working for another couple of years, figuring he would stay on as a full-time faculty member until his wife, who is also a professor, retires in 2011.
But due to tanking stock markets and concerns about a prolonged recession and how his state retirement benefits are calculated, Pawley decided the time was right to step down and start collecting his monthly payouts from the Wisconsin Retirement System.