At 61, Mohammed Ramsey is quasi-retired, but that’s not because he planned it that way.

Ramsey and his wife shut down their day care business in Gainesville a year ago because of dwindling revenues. Unable to sell their five-bedroom house in Johns Creek without taking an $80,000 loss, they leased it out and moved into a smaller rental property they own in Dunwoody. Now the couple lives on income earned off the Johns Creek house and other rentals, but Mohammed Ramsey is still hoping to find a new venture.

“I don’t want to be completely retired,” he said. “If I had enough money I would go into real estate right now,” buying more homes and fixing them up. But he thinks it’s too difficult now to borrow money.

The triple-punch of a severe recession and bear markets on Wall Street and in real estate has continued to rewrite the retirement plans of folks like the Ramseys. Though two of those obstacles have eased lately — with the recession generally considered to have ended in mid-2009 and the stock market rising roughly 60 percent since its early 2009 trough — their effects linger. Many people have been forced into early retirement because of staff downsizing, while others, nervous after the recent economic events, have put their plans for leaving the work force on hold.

In a newly published book, “Reconsidering Retirement, How Losses and Layoffs Affect Older Workers,” economists Courtney Coile and Phillip Levine noted that the number of retirees claiming Social Security benefits surged 23 percent between 2008-09, far above normal trends.

Coile and Levine, professors at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, estimated that 378,000 people across the country have been forced to retire early due to job cutting, while 258,000 have delayed retirement due to the decline in stock prices. That combined number is equal to roughly a fourth of the number who typically file for Social Security retirement benefits.

“If workers retire earlier or later than expected in response to the economic crisis, this may have important implications for their well-being far beyond the initial retirement decision,” they wrote. In particular, people who have to retire earlier than anticipated may have to make do with permanently smaller retirement incomes than they expected.

Retirement savings for many affluent households, on the other hand, have almost recovered from losses during the past three years’ financial turmoil, according to investment managers.

Mitch Reiner, chief investment officer at Capital Investment Advisors in Sandy Springs, said he’s noticed a definite improvement in the prospects for his clients, who are typically small business owners, executives and retirees in their 60s who have $500,000 to $5 million in investments.

The stock market’s up and “things are beginning to pick back up” at clients’ businesses, he said.

Still, the crash “is very fresh in peoples’ minds,” he said.

“I’ve got people that I can tell over and over again that you’ve got enough money to retire,” he said. “They’re just not ready to pull the plug yet.”

Instead, most affluent folks near retirement age are focused on day-to-day matters such as keeping their jobs, building cash reserves, paying down debt and enjoying family life rather than dreaming about retirement baubles like resort homes and exotic trips.

At RTD Financial Advisors’ Dunwoody office, Michael Smith said most of his clients’ portfolios have nearly recovered to their pre-crash levels. But, of seven clients who were considering retiring in 2007 before the crash, none has yet.

“It really did have an effect on people and their plans,” said Smith, a partner at the Philadelphia-based firm.

The crash also caused many people to rethink their priorities, he said.

Most are continuing to work at least part-time, and few now balk at the firm’s advice to build up reserves of cash and short-term investments equal to three years of living expenses, he said. In the past, they wanted more of their money invested in stocks and other assets that promised higher returns but higher risk.

“People clearly understand what risk is now,” he said. “They’ve lived through it.”

These days clients, who are typically business owners or executives with $2 million in investments, never talk about buying vacation homes, he said. They’re more likely to ask how long they should keep their old car before buying a new one.

Helga Cuthbert, a financial planner in Decatur, said about the only clients of hers who are going ahead and retiring are those with traditional pensions that promise a monthly income. Those who have only 401(k)-style retirement plans have typically decided to work an extra a year or two to add to their retirement savings, she said. (Employers make contributions to such plans but shift the investment risk to employees.)

“Most of those portfolios haven’t recovered yet,” she said. Would-be retirees who plan to downsize to a smaller home face another hangup. Because real estate values are still depressed, they can’t sell their current homes at acceptable prices, she said.

Only about 10 percent of her clients are going ahead with retirement plans, said Cuthbert. “Their focus is on expenses,” she said. Some plan to work part-time “to delay when they tap their investments.”

Joe Miller, one of Reiner’s clients, said he retired in 2007 from his job as an engineering manager after AT&T offered an early retirement package that was too good to refuse.

But after a year off, he started working part-time or on contract at AT&T, Verizon and other firms. The 61-year-old Roswell man said his main motivation was that he wanted something to do, not that he needed the money.

“I really wasn’t ready to retire,” he said.

But now his retirement savings have recovered from their earlier losses. He’s almost old enough to start collecting Social Security. And he’s tired of the daily grind.

“I think I’m done.”