Retirement - should it be reserved for people who are too sick

[hedgehog]

and/or crippled to work?

I'm asking this because once again I've heard that the retirement age should be raised "because people are living longer".

[Jackpine Radical]

1. When they're too sick or crippled,

they're just a drag on the economy. There's nothing wrong with the death panel idea that making the panels proactive wouldn't solve.

Retirement should be reserved for the deserving rich.

[hedgehog]

2. Well, after all, the deserving rich are more likely to spend money and

bring more jobs to the economy! You won't see my FIL skiing at Aspen any time soon, not with his bad knees!

[DBoon]

9. God must hate you if you are sick and crippled

Why should the government reward people God has chosen to strike down?

[Capitalocracy]

45. And should come in the 30s if possible. nt

[old mark]

3. Retirement is supposed to be a time to enjoy life free from having to work.

The people who are saying that the age should be raised mostly have enough cash and benefits to do what they like at an early age...they just don't want YOU to retire because they feel they are paying for your leisure.

It is arrogant rich man's bullshit.

mark

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. Work until one day before you die. No sense enjoying life.

The GOP creed.

[gratuitous]

5. And if you're going to die in the afternoon, you'd better be there for the morning

No sense letting all that lovely productivity go to waste when it could be used to further line the overstuffed pockets of some wealthy Master of the Universe.

[TheCowsCameHome]

13. Yep. Figure on working through lunch, too.

You leeches are going to learn there's no free ride.

[Art_from_Ark]

37. To paraphrase the Beatles:

Were you told when you were young that pain would lead to pleasure?
Did you understand it when they said
That a man must break his back to earn his day of leisure
Will you still believe it when you're dead?

[fasttense]

6. Only rich people are living longer.

The farmers, janitors, house-cleaners, box throwers and brick layers are not seeing such a marked increase in life expectancy.

"That increase has been largest for those in professional occupations: Men in that category gained 5.7 years at birth and 2.6 years at age 65 compared with gains of 1.7 and 0.9 years for men in unskilled manual occupations."

So if you have a comfortable professional occupation, you are going to have a more than 3 fold increase in your life expectancy as compared to the poor guy who has to do manual labor.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/91xx/doc9104/LifeExpectancy_Brief.1.1.shtml

[jtown1123]

8. Yes, only wealthy white men have seen these gains.

Don't let people feed you this nonsense that we are all living longer. Are some people living longer? Sure. But these are people that can afford good health care and a good standard of living.

[eridani]

39. For lower income women, longevity is actually decreased.

Needless to say, low income women are by far more likely to have Social Security provide most of their income in old age.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13746-no-southern-comfort-as-life-expectancy-falls.html

[soryang]

7. If the US wants to return my $168,000.00 with back interest...

I'll let them take away my "entitlement."

On edit:

Crippled? Disabled? Impaired? If you are totally disabled you don't have to wait for any particular age. To say you must be disabled to collect, means that you've simply done away with social security retirement benefits based upon age.

[sarcasmo]

12. I feel exactly the same way.

[hedgehog]

16. I just caught the tale end of the Talk of the Nation. After featuring

Robert Samulson pontificating how we have to cut back Social Security , another fellow (Didn't catch his name, sorry) came in and made the statement that had wages increased in step with increased productivity after 1970 (as they did from 1940 -1970), there would be no looming deficit in the Social Security Trust Fund.

[soryang]

24. "looming deficit?"

He must be referring to the one that Obama's tax deal is creating. I'm not aware of any other.

[SammyWinstonJack]

32. Obama must be so proud. Creating a looming SS deficit.

He certainly won't have to rely on SS for his retirement. Or even as a supplement. Hope and Change! :puke:

[theophilus]

29. Yeah, Samuelson seemed a RW ass. The other guy was right on!

The 38 year old caller that wanted to opt out of SS because she likes her job made me wanna puke. These folks are selfish and ignorant about life, imo. She struck me as an obvious Beckerhead/Rush/Fox bot.

[theophilus]

28. Hope you have good health insurance. One relatively minor "infarction" will wipe

out that $168,0000 in the absence of a heartbeat.

[soryang]

33. No, that wasn't the point

I'm all for medicare, single payer, social security, etc. My point is the terminology; social security isn't an entitlement, I've paid for it. To stigmatize it as an uneconomic entitlement is part of framing the issue to eliminate the program. The rates were doubled years ago to make sure it was paid for. It is paid for. If the Pete Peterson, cat food commission big liars in the government want to pretend that it isn't paid for, and needs to be further reduced more than it already has been, then I want my money back.

[Blue_In_AK]

10. Nope.

There aren't even enough jobs for the young people. What do you think would happen if all the healthy retirees (me included) decided to go back and take those jobs? The Gen Xers would hate us even more than they do now.

[DBoon]

11. being sick of working is good enough reason to retire

IMHO

[CaliforniaPeggy]

19. AMEN, brother!

[AndyTiedye]

14. LOWER The Retirement Age

There are not enough jobs now.

It will do no good to expand the workforce by raising the retirement age.

[county worker]

25. There are not enough jobs so it is OK that the seniors don't get them right?

That is complete bull shit. I got the job I have because I had 30 yrs experience. How do you get that much experience as a young person if I quit?

[AndyTiedye]

30. Fine if You Want to Keep Working

I am not talking about FORCED retirement.
There are plenty of people near or even over retirement age
who want to retire and cannot.

More people who want to work would be able to
if more of those who wanted to retire could do so.

Yes, this also means more money for Social Security. Quite a bit more.
We wouldn't have to spend as much on unemployment insurance though.

[Capitalocracy]

44. So don't quit.

The age at which a person has the option to retire should be lowered. A lot of people will CHOOSE to retire if that is the case, leading to more available jobs. There are people who do not wish to work, and in many cases would be a lot healthier if they could retire, but who do not have the option. Nobody should be forced to retire because of an arbitrary age limit.

[badtoworse]

15. People are free to retire whenever they want to.

The real question is can they afford to. If you haven't saved enough for retirement, then the reality is that you won't be able to retire, at least not comfortably.

If people are living 5 years longer now than in the past, then the cost of providing those extra five years of benefits has to be covered in some way. It's going to cost more to pay Social Security benefits to an average person who retires today compared to someone who retired 50 years ago. There are only two options: raise withholding rates or delay the onset of full benefits (or some combination of the two). Forget means testing - that will turn Social Security into a welfare program and no one should want that.

Social security alone will not fund a decent requirement. That means most people will need to work longer and save more to avoid the risk of outliving their savings. I was on a retirement planning website recently that evaluated peoples retirement savings based on living to age 95.

[alstephenson]

17. Or the thieves in Congress could pay back those IOUs to SS.

[badtoworse]

18. How is that relevant? The US has not defaulted on its debt...

...and at present, that is generally not considered to be a significant risk.

[AndyTiedye]

31. They Do, Every Time one of those Treasury Bills Come Due

…and they turn around and buy more of them.

How would you have them invest the Social Security trust fund?

The Repiglickins' want to invest in the stock market, mortgage-backed derivatives, default swaps, and whatever.
This "full of government IOUs" spin is part of their campaign to privatize it so they can do just that.

I'd prefer they stick to T-bills.

[Luminous Animal]

34. I'm thinking that you come from a long line of white collar workers.

Not so much from people of worked their entire lives standing up and doing physical labor.

What kind of work do you suppose that people will have to do in order to save more? How many of those jobs are available to populations percentage-wise? How many more years can a waitress, or a coal miner, or a lineman, or a construction worker, or a cashier, or farmer, or a truck driver, or a teacher, or a nurse, or a janitor can; #1) Save? #2) Live beyond their work exhausting years?

Be specific.

[Statistical]

43. Almost anyone can save.

If you make $40K a year there is someone living on $35K a year. If you make $30K someone is living on $25K.

So this belief that saving/investing is only for the rich is a bogus meme. The point is 100% accurate. SS alone will not provide for a good retirement. If you don't have a pension (which is merely forced savings) you need to save. At least 5% of your gross pay. 10% of gross pay would be better.

Over the course of your (or anyone lifetime) this means living below your means. Just because you "can" afford a $250K (or any price) house doesn't mean you should buy it. Buy one 20% cheaper. Just because you CAN afford a new (or newer) car ever 5 years doesn't mean you SHOULD, stretch the car out to 10 years.

The idea that only the ultra rich are wasteful consumers and everyone else is only buying what they absolutely need and thus can't save anything is bunk. I have seen plenty of middle class people blowing money in starbucks, or on giant flat screen TV. Now I am not saying they shouldn't but don't pass around a weak line like people can't save.

The savings rate in China is almost 30% of gross pay.

[badtoworse]

46. Sorry, I don't have the answers to your questions

The employment situation is horrible and finding jobs that will fund a comfortable retirement is very difficult. On top of that, many boomers are nearing retirement age with little or no assets and will be unable to retire. If and when they can't work, many of them will be dependent on their kids who are struggling already in this economy. Many will be dependent on charity or the state for their survival and many will become homeless. It is going to be a terrible problem and I don't know how to fix it. The country is broke and there are many other needs that have to addressed, e.g. health care, education, crumbling infrastructure, national security, the environment, etc. We need to fix the income distribution in the country for starters so there's more money available to those not in the top 2%. We need to grow the economy, as well. The country is not producing enough things of value to pay for what we are spending, so we need to bring back the manufacturing jobs and high value service jobs that have been offshored. That will be difficult, but do we really have a choice? What is your answer?

I'll stand by what I said about saving - everyone needs to do it even if it's a very small amount.

You're correct about the white collar part, but I wouldn't say it's a long line. I've had middle management jobs in the electric power industry for most of my career and my background is middle class: My father had a number of sales jobs and was a life insurance salesman for 25 years before he retired. My mother immigrated from Jugoslavia in 1918 and was a secretary before marrying my dad. My mother's parents were a seamstress and a cabinet maker. My father was orphaned in 1920 and I don't know what his parents did for a living.

[Cleita]

20. They say people are living longer however statistics

don't seem to bear this out in the USA. Sure they are living longer in countries with universal health care, but we are not keeping up.

[jtown1123]

23. A lot of stats are deceiving as well because there is less childhood death than

in the 30s when SS was created.

[Cleita]

26. I was looking at our own Census stats and

OECD for the last decade, not the thirties. Social Security is funded through 2029 and will cover everyone the way it stands now. However, lowering the percentage taken is the first salvo in destroying it, not my words, but those of Senator Bernie Sanders who knows about these programs.

[damntexdem]

21. Health care -- should it be reserved for the rich?

That horrid question makes about much sense as yours.

First of all, much of "people are living longer" is based on the survival of infants and children, which increases the average life span without affecting how much longer people live at a given age, say 50 or 65. So much of the increase has nothing to do with how long a person is expected to survive after reaching some "retirement age."

Second, a portion of the increased life-span IS due to longer survival at more-advanced ages, e.g., from age 65; but this is no reason to restrict retirement benefits. To do so is in effect to say that since seniors are living longer, they should expect to have more-miserable as well as longer lives. Although those lucky enough to be in occupations such as mine (a university professor, of gerontology in fact) do not plan on retiring until very-advanced ages, a great many working people look forward to the day that they can retire from jobs they hate, or at the very least that take so much out of them. An example is my father, who had been a sheet-metal worker, who retired on the first day it was possible.

Third, who is to judge who is "too sick to work"? I envision a system as terrible as that used currently to torment those who apply for disability, especially under Social Security. In short, many who were literally too sick to work would be totally denied the status, while many more would have their cases delayed for years or decades before finally being granted the status.

Finally, it is ultimately a politically-stupid approach that if pushed will become so unpopular that it will doom the politicians who push it. Hopefully that will catch up to them sooner.

[hedgehog]

22. Ummm......, about the OP..........

:sarcasm:

[kgnu_fan]

27. People who accumulated their social security money should be able to retrieve and relax.

They can enjoy their deserving benefit since that THEIR money that they loaned to the government for a period of time. The promise of retirement is a contract. Labor is something citizens offer to the society but they have right to take the opportunity for retirement so that they can contribute to the society in other capacity than just being a part of "labor force." Also when people retire, they make space for younger generation to step in. We need our young generation to become skilled and competent labor providers, too...

[Swamp Rat]

35. It should be lowered. eom

[Luminous Animal]

36. By the way, that this question is being proposed on a democratic board, is sick.

[TBF]

42. We've got a healthy share of right-wingers that seem to stay under the wire here. nt

[eridani]

38. What about too fucking discriminated against to stay employed ? n/t

[jtrockville]

40. * sings * Saint Peter don't 'ya call me, 'cuz I can't go.

I owe my soul to the company store.

[TBF]

41. I don't know who said that (and you don't have a link of course) -

but I would argue that we should lower the retirement age because young people need jobs. I am in my mid-40's and pretty much screwed thanks to Obama. Our only hope is that we have a good income and likely healthy inheritance - and Obama's not changing the taxes so we're ok on that. But we'll never see social security if he has his way, and I worry about our children being able to get the kind of jobs we've had. Why on earth should we make people in their 60's keep going to work if we don't even have jobs for the kids coming out of high school and college? Cut the defense budget and fund social security.