savings and health care coverage, financial experts say.
Mary Ann Sergeant
Mary Ann Sergeant
Source: Kara Sergeant
After a year of grappling with the pandemic, many baby boomers have made changes to their retirement plans.

Mary Ann Sergeant, 65, spent more than 15 years working as a pharmacy technician at Anna Jaques Hospital in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

She wasn’t planning to retire from the community hospital for another year or two. But the strains as a frontline health worker became too much, and she retired early in December.

“I felt like there was no other decision that I could have made at that time,” she said. “I really didn’t want to leave.”

More from Personal Finance:
How Biden’s capital gains proposal may hit middle-class home seller
Biden’s inherited real estate tax may impact more people than just the wealthy
How Biden’s real estate tax plan may hit smaller property investors

Sergeant isn’t alone in her jump to early retirement.

Some 28.6 million boomers said they were now out of the workforce due to retirement as of the third quarter of 2020, out of total national cohort of about 71.6 million. That is 3.2 million more than those who said they were retired during the same period in 2019, according to a Pew Research report.

“Maybe for some, they faced their mortality and figured ‘why am I going to work if my life expectancy could be curtailed by this pandemic?’ I’m sure that hit a lot of people,” said Paul Gaudio, certified financial planner and wealth planning strategist at Bryn Mawr Trust in Princeton, New Jersey.

While Sergeant’s leap was due to the rigorous demands of healthcare, boomers nationwide share the sentiment of wanting to retire early, particularly women.

Americans expecting to work past age 67 dipped to a low of 32.9% in March, a New York Federal Reserve survey uncovered.

“The biggest risk of retiring early is that you have to make your savings last longer,” said Jude Boudreaux, CFP and partner at The Planning Center in New Orleans.

He said leaving the workforce too soon may put extra pressure on an investment portfolio, depending on how much someone has saved.

“You’re solely dependent on your financial assets, and hopefully, that base is sufficient to accommodate the standard of living for a normal life expectancy,” said Gaudio.