In June, Robert Benmosche, the chairman of the insurance giant American International Group, said an increase in the retirement age was unavoidable. What surprised many is how high he predicted the age would go.

"Retirement ages will have to move to 70, 80 years old," Benmosche told Bloomberg. "That would make pensions, medical services more affordable. They will keep people working longer and will take that burden off of the youth."

Currently, Americans are eligible for early retirement at 62, and full retirement at 66. The loss of retirement funds during the economic downturn forced many to acknowledge that they would have to work longer. But Benmosche's statement shocked many. Will people really have to work a decade or more longer than they expected to make ends meet in retirement?

The answer is yes, according to some retirement experts. A number of factors, accelerated by the Great Recession, are now forcing people to change the ways they save for and think about retirement.

"Most people didn't have enough retirement savings before the downturn. The downturn was the two-by-four hit over the head that made them realize this result," says Steve Vernon, the president of Rest-of-Life Communications, a company that helps people adjust the way they save for their post-work years.

The U.S. government has already acknowledged that the official retirement age will need to increase further than the already-revised 67 years. But doubts about the long-term solvency of Social Security linger. And the need for retirees to find funding beyond the government entitlement is making the official age obsolete anyway.

"The idea of retirement is morphing into a period of time where you work for an extended period, perhaps not making as much money or as many hours, but you still bring in money and keep going," Vernon says.

He says there are two primary reasons for the change:

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The escalating retirement age