For many Baby Boomers who are closing in on retirement without enough money in the till, working longer is the only lever they can pull.

"68 is definitely the new 65!," exclaims Stacy Francis, a certified financial planner in New York City. "Delaying retirement leaves a worker with fewer years of retirement to finance, more time to save and earn returns, and higher Social Security benefits if they delay taking them."

A survey by human resources consulting firm Towers Watson earlier this year found about 39 percent of workers plan to delay retirement and the majority of those delaying retirement expect to work another three years. The findings mirror the advice of the financial experts in a CNBC recent roundtable discussion on "The New Retirement."

"If you can keep your job, YES, work longer," agrees Frank Troise, senior portfolio manager at SoHo Asset Management in San Diego, California.

He says Boomers face a "financial tri-fecta" income, expenses and investment returns and if you lose one, the other two have to be modified.

"The Boomer today who is 55 or older, they're not receiving any income appreciation," Troise says. "They're at serious risks of not keeping their jobs. Since income is not a variable they can control, if they're also now reassessing their market returns, the only other variable they can control is their expenses."

"Not only does working longer mean more contributions and more compounding, but the longer you can defer drawing assets from your portfolio, the more you improve its longevity," says Christine Benz, director of personal finance at Morningstar.

"It's also likely that bond and cash yields will be more hospitable in the years ahead than they are right now," she adds. "And delaying Social Security benefits is also valuable."

If you're 55 or older, you won't reach the full retirement age for Social Security benefits until age 66 1/2 or 67.

So retiring at 68 or even 70 may not seem like much of a stretch.

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Delaying Retirement: Why 68 Has Become 'the New 65'