Celebrity Retirement Scorecard: Jimmy Carter
Filed under: Retire, Career, Wealth
Who is making it? Who is not? We've concocted retirement scorecards for some showcase retirees in entertainment, politics and sports. See the full list here.
Winner: James Earl "Jimmy" Carter Jr.
Former occupation/notable position held: 39th President, United States of America
Activities during retirement: Founder, The Carter Center (world peace & health advocacy); author, Habitat for Humanity (key proponent)
Retirement Report Card Grade: A
While the Iran hostage crisis and an oil embargo may have tarnished his presidential legacy, Jimmy Carter has passed retirement with flying colors, as his 2002 Nobel Peace Prize attests.
Passion is one of the keys to sustained fulfillment during retirement, and President Carter's pursuit of humanitarian issues is not only noble, it demonstrates his deep devotion for something he identified early on as meaningful and worth pursuing. He has been doing good deeds with such vigor from virtually the moment he left office,
Struggling with no-easy-fix, macro issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, homelessness, genocide and world hunger has kept him mentally engaged, which is vital to post-career satisfaction. And the former president clearly understands the key retirement value of keeping up with (and adding to) a social network built during career, as his advocacy with today's world leaders demonstrates.
That he founded The Carter Center jointly with his wife, Rosalynn, soon after leaving office suggests they planned their post-White House years together. That bespeaks the best kind of retirement planning: taking into account the wants and needs of those closest to you.
Most former presidents take pen in hand upon leaving office, but Carter has done it a little differently. There are his memoirs, his musings on politics, his deep explorations of the Middle East conflict, and then there is The Hornet's Nest, a work of fiction set in the south during the Revolutionary War. There's a good chance he wrote it to please one person: himself. In retirement, that is not only permissible, it's healthy.
Michael Burnham is CEO of My Next Phase, a consulting firm offering non-financial retirement planning products and services (www.mynextphase.com).





Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
6-27-2008 @ 5:26PM
jonikal said...
Here's one guy who should keep hammering nails and keep out of politics. He was a complete disaster as president - and we are about to experience a regurgitation of the same with Obama.
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6-28-2008 @ 8:17PM
A. MANCIN said...
Bravo -- your comments are dead on!!!
6-28-2008 @ 8:36PM
Miriam said...
Hopefully, Obama will not win. Jimmy was not the best Pres., but I don't agree that he should stay out of politics altogether. I still value his opinion & respect him as a humanitarian. And 'so what' he talks about Bush. Bush was only the better of the two evils to pick from in the last election.
6-29-2008 @ 8:28PM
douglas p kiener said...
Hands down the worst President this country has ever had the misfortune of experiencing.
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6-28-2008 @ 8:16PM
A. Mancin said...
You may give Carter an "A" but his criticism of our President is unheard of from a previous President. Carter should just stick to building houses, keep his big mouth shut, and stop making himself a pest with his personal diplomacy. If he had used any diplomacy when he was President, he might have been a better one but his 20% interest rates and unemployment problems, and international disasters make me feel he was the worst in the 20th century...................
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6-28-2008 @ 8:56PM
Westoc said...
Considering his neverending suck-ups to those who hate Israel and are sworn to destroy it and foster jihad, it's hard to cast him as a "humanitarian" and "peacemaker." Dupe is more like it. Well paid dupe. His "foundation" is well funded by jihad supporters. Keep hammering nails, not Israel, Jimmy. (And by the way... I'm not Jewish, I'm Presbyterian!)
6-28-2008 @ 8:40PM
jayman said...
Jimmy, please whack your thumb with a hammer. It will take our minds off of the painful 1970's
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6-28-2008 @ 8:42PM
buzz power said...
Former Prez James Earl Carter getting an "A" ?? Gimme a break,,, he is why we lost Iran to the "Humanistic Ayatollahs" who have given us (the USA) Hezbollah,Hamas et al.
Jimmy Carter was a fraud & one of the worst things that happened to the US of A !!
The yahoo still makes a living out of denigrating & bad mouthing the USA,,, Nobel Peace Prize winner !! (My Ass),, More Americans , especially military are in their graves because of that Georgia Cracker !! It is wonderful that Jimmy Carter's "second administration" will start with Prez O'Bama, the irishman,, God Forbid !!
Da Buzzard (USMC Ret.)
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6-28-2008 @ 8:46PM
DrBerylF said...
I do think you are right on point. Jimmy Carter deserves an "A." He is not afraid to give his honest opinion about what is going onin the world and he is truly a peace maker. The Iran hostage situation was one set up to malign President Carter but history will see him as one of if not the best President of our time. Bravo to President and Mrs. Carter. You both are doing a fantastic job with Habitat for Humanity.
Much love! keep doing God's work.
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6-29-2008 @ 9:39AM
jayman said...
well said
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6-28-2008 @ 9:57PM
Sidewinder said...
Carter given an "A" How ironic. He may be worth an A for his pounding nails with Habitat for Humanity, but he was one of the worst presidents this country has ever seen. During his administration interest rates for mortgages were 17% to 21%. We had double digit inflation, and gas rationing. He couldn't accomplish the release of the hostages in Iran (something that happened the minute Pres. Reagan too office). He never saw a dictator he didn't like, and now goes abroad and criticizes our sitting president and the U.S. This guy is some kind of nut. Perhaps thats the reason he is a peanut farmer, just where he should have stayed!
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6-28-2008 @ 10:22PM
sam said...
Carter couldn't hack it a our president and should have left it at that. He enabled the commies to take over Nicaragua, gave the Panama Canal to the Chinese and now acts like he knows what is best for the world, even though he is putting the US down. The Norwegians gave him the Nobel as their way of poking a finger in our eye. You guys that rate him "A" must be smoking some strong stuff.
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6-28-2008 @ 10:22PM
lj said...
An "a" for this loser? You must be kidding. He has gone to great lengths to undermine and embarrass a sitting president. He was a poor president, and really has nothing to contribute.
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6-28-2008 @ 10:52PM
Paul said...
Who gave this loser an A, howard Dean?
6-28-2008 @ 11:03PM
Jane Wilson said...
Most of these people are right about Jimmy Carter. He was the worst President this country has ever had and now he is the worst ex-president. He should stick to
Habitat. Glad to know there really are smart people on the net.
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6-29-2008 @ 12:31AM
Jose said...
Jimmy Carter is a big winner and sore loser at the same time. With all his altruism, he should receive a B- at best. Besides flirting and travelling into the rogue, enemy nations and conclaves of the Palestinian terrorists (remember his honoring Arafat recently?) and Fidel Castro in Cuba, he has interefered in sitting administrations' foreign policies and has given comfort to those who hate the USA.
Oh, Mr. Carter! the American electorate fired you in 1980 giving way to the Reagan Administration' success in dwarfing your disasterous four years. How dare you interefere in the people's business!
You are grandiose and pompous. You sneer at us and try to pass yourself as being some kind of Roosevelt or Kennedy. You won the Nobel Peace Prize? What a farce! After honeymooning with those who would destroy the USA, you should be jailed.
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6-29-2008 @ 12:31AM
Marlene said...
Anyone who thinks this president was any good then or now needs some major head work. He was awful then. Probably the worst this country has ever had and is now a traitor. Do you people not read?
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6-29-2008 @ 1:26AM
joshmoskovits said...
Jimmy Carter is an "F-" in my book... the guy goes around sticking his nose in places where it doesn't belong - please let actual politicians handle foreign affairs. This guy has no business talking to Iran, but maybe we'll make him an exception after all he did do such a great job as President! I mean, he really did a great job handling the Iran hostage crisis (FYI the hostages were let out while Ronald Reagan, his successor, was making his inauguration speech.) As for the Nobel Peace Prize, well, let me name some other notables who share that honor: Andrei Sakharov (Soviet nuclear physicist), Anwar Sadat, Mikhail Gorbachev, and of course, Yasser Arafat. Wow, Carter sure is in great company. The guy did NOTHING as President, and even though I hate Bill Clinton's guts, he should have gotten at least a C+.
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6-29-2008 @ 2:54AM
Andita said...
Who makes up these grades? Jimmy Carter an "A" and Bill Clinton a "D"? While the Habitat for Humanity is very nice, Carter is a provocateur in a very negative sense. I give him a D+. Bill Clinton should certainly earn a B+ and he's talented, still young and has got a great future still ahead of him.
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6-29-2008 @ 2:36AM
Helene said...
Not only the worst president before the current moron, but an Arab oil whore and a liar who took piles of oil money to put down Israel and lied about it to the embarrassment of people who worked for, and with him.
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