Lamh Foistenach Abu!
Posted on 04/13/2011 9:25:37 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It’s time for a 21st-century retirement age. If 40 is the new 20 and 50 is the new 30, why shouldn’t 70 be the new 65? The last time politicians tinkered ever so gingerly with the government-sanctioned retirement age, Ronald Reagan was in office and Generation X–ers were all in diapers. Since then, American life expectancy has increased by half a decade and continues to rise — while the “traditional” retirement age (established eight decades ago) has only recently begun phasing up to 67 and the official “early” retirement age (established four decades ago) remains stuck at 62.
There is simply no good reason why 21st-century workers should operate under obsolete 1930s expectations and 1970s rules. We’re living longer, working longer, and, in general, holding down jobs that are far less physically taxing than those of previous generations.
The reasons we should update these relics of our teetering federal entitlement programs are myriad. Demographic, actuarial, and fiscal realities demand it. As blue-ribbon entitlement-reform panels have warned for years, the number of younger workers supporting Social Security beneficiaries is dwindling. It’s a global phenomenon. The Economist magazine reports that, based on declining fertility rates, “by 2050 there will be just 2.6 American workers supporting each pensioner and the figures for France, Germany and Italy will be 1.9, 1.6 and 1.5 respectively.”
This amounts to a budget-busting wealth-transfer scheme whose lousy “investments” cannot be sustained unless basic structural reforms are made. Shared sacrifice means that every able-bodied worker — including federal employees and elected officials — must get with the times. Americans can no longer feel entitled to some 20 to 30 years of subsidized retirement, often collected over the course of many more years than retirees actually spent paying into the system.
Raising the traditional and early retirement ages will mean extending workers’ taxable earning years, fueling economic growth, and putting a dent in our unfunded-liabilities crisis by delaying payouts. Some senior citizens’ lobbying groups fret that today’s workforce wouldn’t be able to handle longer careers. Tell that to Betty White or Joan Rivers or Helen Mirren.
More to the point, as domestic-policy analyst Andrew Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute observes, “Perhaps the best evidence that future Americans can work longer is that past Americans did: Despite poorer health, shorter lives, and more strenuous jobs, in 1950 the typical individual did not claim Social Security until age 68.5. In 1950, more than 20 percent of Americans worked in physically demanding jobs; today only about 8 percent do. While today’s technology-driven service economy places demands on older workers, it is hard to imagine that things were easier when Americans typically worked on farms or in factories.”
This week, after rejecting the austerity measures of his own blue-ribbon fiscal-responsibility panel last fall and attacking serious GOP attempts to address the impending bankruptcy of both Social Security and Medicare, President Obama will unveil his entitlement-reform package. Yep, Barry-come-lately and his teleprompter are ambling down the grim-rose path. The main feature of the president’s “bold” plan? Higher taxes on the nation’s top wealth producers and earners. Translation: Same old, same old class-warfare cowardice.
For their part, both Republican House speaker John Boehner and House minority whip Steny Hoyer, wary of incurring the wrath of senior voters, have tiptoed, pirouetted, and backtracked on updating the retirement age. They’ve promised to put “everything on the table” now — as long as everyone agrees later to kick the can down the road. Again.
As many entitlement reformers have noted, the very first American to benefit from Social Security, Ida May Fuller, collected nearly $23,000 in government pension benefits after paying in less than $25. At the rate we’re going now, my kids and the Obamas’ kids will never see a dime of what they are forced to put in. They’ll already be waist-deep in the red as they enter their prime earning years. A truly modern government pension plan would follow the private sector by moving from a defined benefits plan to a defined contributions system — and by injecting free-market competition to improve returns.
Instead, we are dooming a generation of reverse–Ida May Fullers who have no choice on where to “invest” their automatically confiscated payroll taxes. The dawdlers and demagogues in Washington aren’t “winning the future.” They’re robbing it.
— Michelle Malkin is the author of Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies
How nice for the government to sanction when one can retire.
ill take 80 if they’ll privatize and let us invest, instead of the social security theft racket.
Sure, just keep us from getting what we paid into all our lives. That fixes things nicely. /s
Why do progressives get all upset when raising the retirement age is suggested?
What you said! Exactly correct.
This has to happen to get more workers per parasite. Everyone knows that too many parasites can kill the body politic.
Lamh Foistenach Abu!
If the govt continues unreformed/reined in your retirement date will coincide w/ the day you’re buried.
I have an issue with this statement from the article :
“Raising the traditional and early retirement ages will mean extending workers’ taxable earning years, fueling economic growth, and putting a dent in our unfunded-liabilities crisis by delaying payouts”
Ms. Malkin is assuming that in America, companies would want to continue keeping or even hiring workers who are in their late 50’s or above.
This is not so. If you are unlucky enough to be laid off, the older you are, the less likely you are to find another job. AGEISM is a REALITY in the USA ( yes, even if you’re willing to lower your salary expectations ).
So, Ms. Malkin wants people to get social security at age 70. Let’s say you get laid off at 62.... What you’ve saved for 40 years in SS money won’t be available for you for another 8 years.
In the meantime, good luck finding an employer who will even consider hiring you.... but hey, there’s perhaps the neighborhood MacDonalds who might consider...
SS retirement age is 66. Average life expectancy of a U.S. male is 75.6. That's less than 10 years.
Thanks.
Does anyone know how much money has been collected for SS since its inception?
Does anyone know how much money has been confiscated for Govt. programs other than SS retirement?
Does anyone know how much the SS fund would be in the red/black if the monies had been invested like other private pension plans/annuities and not misused?
I know some 70 year-olds who can outwork people half their age.
And there is no question people are staying “younger” longer. An obvious example is William Shatner who just turned 80 and has a couple of TV series and a successful commercial career going. The guy seriously doesn’t look or act a day over 60, if that.
An arbitrary “retirement age” is as senseless as just about everything else Socialism has come up with. And it diminishes a whole lot of people who may just be hitting their stride when they’re put out to pasture.
You mean it would be OK with you if you could not withdraw from your privately invested retirement fund until you were 80?
Oh, they can't, the pol's already squandered everyone's social security funds; gotta keep the ponzi scheme going now is all..
So commit another robbing of the public to fix another problem caused by robbing the public? What a great country.
Are they going to lower the retirement age for government employees at the same time.
Honey, if it took someone 60 years to “hit their stride” that’s a horse I would have said is severely handicapped by mental problems.
In 1937, when Social Security went into action, the payouts were to people who were 65 years and older. The average lifespan of a U.S. male was 58 years. So you would be dead for 7 years, on average, before you collected Social Security.
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