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I think this is for younger generation. When I was in college, my FRA was raised from 65 to 67. It will be 10 more years before I can get SS. I'm hoping they will keep the 62 years as the earliest you can take out. But Congress has to do something. The U.K. has already raised the retirement age for people younger than 40 to 68.
Edit to say, you can't take money out at 62 in UK.
But the UK has free health care, which is the largest financial burden of seniors.
Best to compare the US with other industrialized nations who don't provide any health care to its citizens.
No more sense than the delusional "progressives" have regarding the nation's ability to fund huge social programs in a de-industrializing economy.
If we're living longer, we're going to have to work later in life; it really is just that simple.
"We" don't have that choice. When someone is laid off at age 58, chances are slim that another company will hire him. If they do, he most certainly will get a huge cut in pay. Then there are other jobs where a person finds the job too physical for that age, or develops physical issues that interfere with job performance. It's difficult to change jobs at that age and have another company hire a senior as a "trainee."
The politicians are people who don't really work for a living. They have business luncheons, dinner meetings, meet with committees, go to their offices and have their staffers tell them things that are going on, they do fund raising on the phone. Then they go to fund raisers, call home and talk to the spouse and kids. Then fly home for a week before flying back and repeating. They don't really know what it's like to have a real job, where age matters.
At my former company, I watched several layoffs. They targeted those who weren't great employees, of course. But they also zeroed in on those over 50 and those with tenure who got paid more (they didn't fire ALL of those, or they could have been sued for age discrimination). They also got rid of those with health issues (a recent broken hip, cancer, etc.).
Before SS, about 60% of our seniors lived in poverty. Now, about 20% live in poverty, I've read. SS has been one of the most successful programs our country has ever had. These people have been productive working citizens, and paid into the system for decades. It does precisely what it was designed to do: help prevent seniors from living in poverty.
The UK saying you don't get your funds until you're 68, but you will continue to get full free health care, is very different from the U.S. saying you don't get your funds until you're 68...and you'll have to pay 100% yourself for all your senior health care AND your other living expenses until then...if you live that long without health care.
Talk about death panels. That sounds like the closest thing to a real death panel I've ever heard of.
If we're living longer, we're going to have to work later in life; it really is just that simple.
I'd say we have to plan appropriately. One plan is to work later in life, but there are other plans. My personal plan, beginning when I was in my early 20s, was to assume SS won't be there for me at all. I semi-retired by 40 and fully retired before 50. I won't quality for SS for another 7 years.
A more elegant solution is to raise the FICA Payroll Tax from 6.2% for employer and employee to 8.5%, add a 2% surcharge tax on income over the Income Cap, and lower the full-retirement age to 65 years for everyone, then make a one-time lump sum payment to those whose retirement age was 65+.
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Very good point - if the government is effectively preventing a good portion of the population from retiring at an age where they are relatively healthy then the LEAST they can do is put some real teeth into age discrimination law.
The government isn't preventing anyone from retiring whenever they want to retire. I semi-retired at 40 and fully retired before 50.
Very good point - if the government is effectively preventing a good portion of the population from retiring at an age where they are relatively healthy then the LEAST they can do is put some real teeth into age discrimination law. People are getting pushed out as early as their 50's with much reduced chances for meaningful employment for another 15 or 20 years. I can't imagine that working at McD's on your feet all day feels good at 70!
This is true. AND, since health care is the largest expense of seniors, is the govt going to guarantee health care for seniors who have lost their jobs but can't get Social Security benefits? Otherwise, they will end up spending their retirement funds before SS, and having to live on the paltry SS benefits. SS was intended to supplement our retirement funds, not be our sole support.
Another thing we need is a voluntary opt in.. something that says to the younger worker "by adding an additional 3% your full retirement age will be reduced from 70 to 64."
It wouldn't work because people would expect the government to change the rules many times during their lifetimes. By the time they reached retirement age, the extra 3% they paid all those years might be moot because SS might be replaced by a very different system. Even if they actually end up getting exactly what they paid for with the 3%, it still wouldn't work, because what counts is not whether they get what's promised, but whether they expect to get what's promised. And they wouldn't expect it, because politics changes too many things in too many ways, making promises meaningless. So they wouldn't pay the 3% in the first place, because it would be like saying to the politicians, "here's my 3% for the distant future, because I trust politicians to keep things stable forever."
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