Photo by Stockbyte / Getty via Time

Boomers aren’t likely to get a federal bailout, but they can bail out their own sinking finances with another few years of work, Time magazine reports.

Time reporter Kristina Dell cites a November study by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) that found that working longer is the only way boomers can preserve their standard of living and not be a drag on U.S. economic growth. According to MGI, two-thirds of boomers have not saved enough for retirement, and many don’t even realize it.

The report estimates that an increase in the median retirement age over the next decade — from 62.6 to 64.1 — would reduce by half the number of boomers who would find themselves without enough money for retirement (and add nearly $13 trillion to real U.S. GDP over the next 30 years).

Without such an increase, aging boomers’ reduced levels of working and spending will slow real economic growth in the from an average of 3.2% a year since 1965 to about 2.4% over the next three decades,” says the MGI report.

“If people continue to work between two and four years longer, they will be better off financially, and as a country we will be better off fiscally,” Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of Civic Ventures, told Time.