#RaiseRetirementAge #RetirementAge #retirement #jobs #work
Some who want to govern us have proposed raising the retirement age to, say, 70.
These ideas are forged as the country grapples with the rising costs of Social Security, Medicare and the deficit federal spending they cause.
At first blush, it looks like a good solution.
When Social Security was created (Medicare came later), it adopted 65 as the age one can begin collecting. Over time, Congress played with the Social Security fund until it merged with the entire federal budget.
Back when the retirement age was set at 65, many, if not most, people did not live much beyond that. Working life took a lot out of people, and untreatable diseases caused early deaths.
Today, however, people are living longer, because of advances in medical care, treatment and prevention. They are staying retired for decades. Many are healthy enough to work in some capacity.
So, for the financial good of the country, why not have people work a few more years?
Here’s the rub: employers, in many cases, want people gone as soon as possible.
Even though the “official” retirement age is 65, once people start approaching age 50, employers want to phase them out. In fact, they want them gone long before 65. There are laws preventing employees from age discrimination, but companies usually find other ways to phase people out.
If these companies provide health benefits for employees (fewer and fewer are doing that), they know older employees will use those benefits to a higher degree.
Older employees with seniority in the company also make a lot of money and, in some cases, are less productive than younger workers. They have more vacation time, in many cases.
There is a labor shortage in many industries, and older workers could help ease that. But, the extra costs older workers put on employers can negate the needed help they are providing.
Certainly, some older workers want to keep working. But, if they have a stressful job, that stress may not be good for them. Ideally, if employers could phase out older workers by putting them in less stressful jobs, that may ease the problem. But, most employers simply cannot do that.
Also, older employees often have old skills that are no longer needed, or have been replaced by machines.
Many don’t easily adapt to newer skills as companies evolve.
So, the idea of people working longer may have some appeal on paper, but, as a practical matter, may be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.
If you are a worker, are you going to regret on your death bed that you didn’t work more?
That would be unlikely.
We should have a system of labor in the U.S. that allows people to work as long as they want to, within reason.
But, that may not be practical.
As a worker, you need to plan correctly, presuming your job will go away at any time. It may not go away at a time of your choosing.
Peter