Posted on 03/27/2008 10:54:24 AM PDT by sickoflibs
When I hear my fellow baby boomers gleefully talk about their elaborate plans to retire ASAP, head for the Tuscan hills, or otherwise continue their lifelong quest for "self-actualization," I have to bite my tongue.
It's not that I'm all work and no play. But there's just something - make that lots of things - wrong, in general, with retiring at 55, 62 or even 65. I would go so far as to call it profoundly selfish and unpatriotic.
However, if Americans retired later, either staying in their current jobs or taking up "encore careers" - what Marc Freedman of Civic Ventures calls do-good, later-life jobs - we could significantly slow the growth of our multitrillion-dollar national debt, which is largely driven by rising Medicare and Social Security costs (as yesterday's Social Security trustees' report makes abundantly clear). We also could keep more people in a labor force that would no longer be growing appreciably if not for immigrants. For individuals, working longer can mean more income and savings and something to bequeath to one's children. For the nation, if millions of us worked until 67 instead of 62, Americans' wealth and consumption would increase appreciably, fueling stronger economic growth. That added income would provide about $800 billion in additional tax revenues, and reduce government benefit costs by at least $100 billion in 2045, according to Urban Institute calculations. This alone would cut the projected deficit in 2045 by 159 percent.
To encourage such behavior, Social Security benefits taken before age 66 or 70 could be more highly taxed, and employee rates of Social Security taxation could be progressively reduced for each year worked after 66 or 70. Or the government could provide a similar sliding tax credit for Americans who continue working beyond age 70.
(Excerpt) Read more at baltimoresun.com ...
That’s the smart thing to do, IMO. For many of us baby boomers, the difference in benefits between retiring at 62 rather than 66 will not be equaled until 76 YO.
IOW, if you retire at 62, your benefits will be reduced by 25% to 30%. If you wait until 66 to 67 to start drawing SS, it will take you at least until you are 76 before you have received the same total amount of money that you will be retiring at 62. (For those born in 1960, the break-even is at almost 79 YO.)
Makes no difference which set of figures you use. Child mortality stopped being an issue stateside during the 20th century. Average life span went from the low 60's to the low 80's. That's 20 more years for SS to carry, which is a really heavy burden, considering the pay-as-you-go nature of the program.
Of course, if SS were structured so that people got what they put in, instead of getting more than they paid in, SS wouldn't have a solvency problem. At the same time, without the getting-something-for-nothing aspect of SS, it wouldn't be anywhere near as popular as it is today.
“I’ll tell you what, Andy, you work until you fall over dead from old age, while I retire and cruise around the country in my geezer RV.”
I retired, started a second career and now plan on leaving the work force, primarily due to the confiscatory tax system that punishes tax payers for earning more income, just as is done in other socialist countries.
It’s time to sit back now and come out ahead tax wise without bothering to work in retirement.
More and more of the baby boom generation will be doing this soon.
So Hitlery and Obama tax the working men and women all that you want and watch the coming collapse.
Most who are considering early retirement could have retired at 29 if they hadn’t been so foolish in their youth.
Liberals preaching patriotism is something akin to Eliot Spitzer preaching fidelity.
Carolyn
“...given our nation’s crying need for teachers, social service workers and public servants, millions of “seasoned citizens” could serve our communities...”
What a maroon. I could easily retire now, but am working to do some fun stuff. However, were I to retire, I could teach at the university level (since I have a PhD), but could not teach at the high school level. And, I never would, because I would NEVER lower my IQ by taking any of the marshmallow courses offered to those pursuing a degree in “education”.
Nothing will reduce the fiscal problems of a Ponzi scheme.
Ask a construction worker about retiring at 72 - physical demands of the job usually dictate an earlier retirement.
And an engineer whether his company will keep him employed at age 70 - most get laid off by age 45-50 now in favor of younger or foreign workers.
Etc.
Socialists bring this on themselves and then wonder how it happened.
“Politicians say more taxes will solve everything....and the band played on.....”
“To encourage such behavior, Social Security benefits taken before age 66 or 70 could be more highly taxed...”
Soc Sec is a classic bait and switch scheme anyway.
Isn’t this the guy who was hoping that global warming deniers don’t expect gov help when the seas flood coastal areas?
I did. I worked from the time I was a teenager, for 45+ years. I put up with a tremendous amount of crap, and lined the pockets of every pimp manager I had. I was bled dry in taxes. I wasted a mammoth amount of my life commuting.
I wish I had retired at 55.
I think we'll either have a geezer revolution (because of reduced benefits), or mass emigration of productive workers abroad, as the domestic tax burden goes through the roof to cover an additional 20 years of average life span. The numbers don't add up. The national debt is current $9T. The retirement entitlements problem is one where we're short $60T. Like it or not, something's gonna give.
Dear Mr. Yarrow,
Bite me.
Regards,
Wolfie
WOW, sorry to hear that! I’ll add you to my church prayer list.
I plan on working as long as someone will pay me.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I’d work if the government would let me keep a lot more of what I made.
This is the best idea of heard of. Everyone should retire early. As soon as congress figures out there is no more SS money coming in they’ll have to do something. If you keep feeding that SS monster and dragging it out it won’t ever die. It’s like Dennis Miller said, “Don’t drive an economical car and prolong the petrochemicals, everyone should drive a big gas burning SUV and get rid of the gas faster and then they’ll have to come up with a new energy source.
LOL. Don’t worry, with the very low savings rate in this country, most of our seniors will be saying, “Would you like fries with that?”
I don’t care when people retire. What I do hate is when people retire and then scream about being on a fixed income and want a pity party. If you don’t want to be on a fixed income don’t retire.
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