How High Can the Retirement Age Go?

[elleng]

Social welfare systems are under pressure everywhere in the developed world. But it’s all relative.

French workers took to the streets on Thursday to protest their government’s plan to raise the retirement age from 60 — yes, 60 — to 61 or 62. In Spain, the International Monetary Fund has recommended that the government raise the official retirement age from 65 to 67 and then tie it to increases in longevity rates.

In the United States, where private-sector workers born in 1960 and later already have to work to 67 to gain full Social Security benefits, government officials are looking for ways to reduce the costs of ballooning public sector pensions and are pressuring unions to agree to later retirement dates.

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/how-high-can-the-retirement-age-go/

[John Q. Citizen]

1. It will soon be that 2 years after you are dead you can retire. We are so screwn.

[napi21]

2. It all depends on what the populace really wants. Mubby & I were on the cusp of

the last raise in gae. He was born in 1942 & I in 1943. We both had to wait beyond 65. I had worked my whole life since 16, paid into SS the whole time & Medicare since it's inception, but I was forced to retire in 1998 due to an illness. I signed up for SS when I was 65 even though it would cost me...mainly because my husband convinced me I probably wouldn't live long enough to make a wait worth it. Hubby retired 2 months after he was finally eligible, because his boss asked him to cover the avacations, and he did.

I honestly don't know how much farther they can push people to work beyond the current 67 y. Many prople simply can't physically work longer than that, and those who can work & want to continue, they can.

My son works in Sicily & when I talked to him about the problem in Greece & they had a retirement age of 50 (to which I about croaked) he said I was only hearing what things were in the US, they were not the same in Europe. Most retirement ages are lower in EU.

Probably the most prominent is Denmark where they really do have a Socialist system they have cradle to grave care, will sponsor 3 guys who want to start a new business with grants, and they are also known as the happiest people on earth! Yea, they don't like their high taxes, but they also say they are so happy with their benefits, they're willing to pay them.

The people in the US have to decide what they really WANT!

[havocmom]

3. Yep. And isn't it odd: we don't have enough jobs for citizens and we don't want any to retire

Not real sure what the game plan is, but have a strong hunch the general population has not thought it through much. Seems like the retirement issue is just another wedge issue to keep various parts of the population fighting each other instead of looking at the real culprits for various messes in the economy.

[enlightenment]

4. I'd be happy to retire (not old enough, yet!)

but I don't want to spend my retirement years living under a bridge, so my game plan is - unfortunately - to work until I die. I don't want to, but I don't see that I have a choice.
:(

[havocmom]

6. Yep, I hear ya.

No plans to live to a ripe old age, myself. I am wearing out and can't work much longer. End of work = end of being able to afford to live.

[Scuba]

5. Work until you die...

...at a slave labor wage rate, without healthcare, no benefits whatsoever. Guess what: that STILL wouldn't make Carlin's 900 families happy.

[dmallind]

7. Bear in mind life expectancy at birth in 1935 was 61.7. Now over 78

It is unreasonable to expect static retirement ages with static if not increasing real benefits and think we can avoid either raising age limits or tax levels at some point.

[jtuck004]

8. I thought the whole point of retirement was to have a little time

to live your life after your working years, to enjoy the world a little bit. If they are going to raise the age, why not just do away with it entirely and tell people we want you to work until the day we put you in the ground?

We could save a lot more by ending a couple of wars and pay down the deficit by investing our money in the American people, getting back the the 2.5% unemployment rate we had in 1953.