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no where is stopping work a guaranteed right either. it is really a priveledge for those who have achieved the level of having no longer to have to work for their money but can now have their money work for them.
working until 70 can be the silver bullet of retirement. sure many people can't but a whole lot more just don't want to by choice .
but the difference between 62 and 70 can really help an under funded retirement become a decent one.
the ss check at 70 is almost 2x what it is at 62 with colas added
you don't spend down savings for 8 years
you can contribute to savings for 8 more years
your savings if invested can compound for 8 more years
you have 8 years less to support of life.
all of the above can make a bad financial situation a whole lot better.
IMO alot of people retire literally the very second they turn 62 and this is the big factor behind alot of the issues that retired people have with cost of living, income, etc. I realize that people may be burned out, I realize that they may be working a manual labor job ... I get it. But retiring at 70 makes a very big difference in the size of your monthly check. If both a husband and wife were to work until 70 and downsize to a smaller home or a condoo they could easily afford to retire on Long Island even.
IMO the early retirement age should be raised from 62 to 65 and the full retirement age from 66 to 70.
People who find themselves out of a good job in their 50's, often because replacement workers could be found more cheaply, knowing that nobody will hire them, may be forced to take what they can after his 6 months unemployment runs out, and that usually means early Social Security.
I know a 59 year old legal secretary and a 61 year old expert saleswoman in exactly that boat.
Both are living off their 401K's and, natch, neither can wait to age 70 to get enhanced Social Security checks. One had to bail out of New York for cheaper rent.
I think most of the young would be very surprised to find out the large percentage of people who had no say in when they were going to retire.
All they really need to do is change the wording. Call 70 full retirement age.
Why not make it 90 for SS and 95 for Medicare? That way the government can suck a lifetime of high taxation from working people and use every penny of it to fight wars and funnel money into corporate pockets.
Reagan's upping the full retirement age from 65 to 67 was enough of a slashing thank you.
payments and ages stay the same but only how we view those ages should change , kind of just a mind game .
most of america is ill prepared for retirement. they will make do , they always did but it can be a miserable way to live out your years struggling , sweating every unexpected expense , living away from family and friends in a place you don't really want to be. .
our generation got caught in a bad place unlike other generations.
being a baby boomer most company pensions were already long gone from the work place but other vehicles like 401k's didn't come until many years later.
so we were left with big gaps of time where few did any savings. throw in the fact wage growth has sucked for 20 years and savings are way below where they should be.
unless you live like a dumpster diver in some low cost area you are not cutting it on early ss amounts .
so the fact is most folks who can wait should wait. but americans being so financially ignorant do not understand the difference in their finances working longer can make if they have that choice so they just opt out way to underfunded at 62.
Last edited by mathjak107; 04-05-2015 at 06:08 AM..
People who find themselves out of a good job in their 50's, often because replacement workers could be found more cheaply, knowing that nobody will hire them, may be forced to take what they can after his 6 months unemployment runs out, and that usually means early Social Security.
I know a 59 year old legal secretary and a 61 year old expert saleswoman in exactly that boat.
Both are living off their 401K's and, natch, neither can wait to age 70 to get enhanced Social Security checks. One had to bail out of New York for cheaper rent.
I think most of the young would be very surprised to find out the large percentage of people who had no say in when they were going to retire.
many do not have a say , that is a given . in fact i can tell you the statistics. since i have been working on a few articles for publication on the retirement crises i have quite a bit of data collected.
the reality is for for many of those folks there is no hope or answer and for them they will be stuck with a retirement that falls way short of what they wanted or expected.
but then there are those who did have a choice and comitted financial suicide by taking that early exit. waiting from 62 to 70 to collect can mean the difference in income as if you had a savings hundreds of thousands more than you have and retired at 62. it is that drastic of a difference for someone depending on ss and a meger savings to eat..
there is a big difference between someone retiring at 62 and collecting who can afford to retire and one who is counting on ss to eat and pay bills. don't confuse those two types of retirees. i will likely take my ss at 63 but i don't count on it soley to eat.
Last edited by mathjak107; 04-05-2015 at 06:11 AM..
here is a comparison of amounts , typical payment of 2014.00 a month would be 4319.00 a month with colas at age 70. that can do a whole lot of compensating. especially with 8 years of supporting life past.
life is never about the age old queston what if i die ? the real queston should be what if i live ?
dead is dead -game over. it is living that is the problem .
Last edited by mathjak107; 04-05-2015 at 06:04 AM..
The big question I have is what will happen when the Medicare and social services systems Florida and North Carolina implode due to the cost of caring for all these retired old people on fixed incomes? That date is fast approaching. They would have been better off working until 70 and downsizing to a smaller home or a condo here in NY like my parents plan on doing.
I know someone who works for the North Carolina state government and he says their Medicare fund is on the verge of bust. They want to start taxing out of state pensions in hopes of discouraging retirees from moving there.
we fire off a bunch less smart bombs and tomahawks , mind our own business more and the budget is closed . then the money sent to fund medicare and ss.
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