How does sequence-of-returns risk affect a retiree differently than someone still saving?

While you're saving, a market crash can actually help you because you keep buying shares at low prices. In retirement the math flips. If you're selling investments for income when prices are down, you lock in losses and permanently shrink the base that has to recover, which can drain a portfolio years earlier even if the average return over your retirement is fine. Two retirees with identical average returns can end up in very different places purely based on the order those returns arrive. That's why the first five to ten years of retirement, when a bad early stretch does the most damage, matter enormously for how you invest and withdraw.