You might have to work forever: The honest reality about Social Security and retirement

[xchrom]

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/03/you_might_have_to_work_forever_the_honest_reality_about_social_security_and_retirement/


Gary Cole and Ron Livingston in "Office Space" (Credit: Twentieth Century Fox)

Just 30 years ago, most American workers were able to stop working in their early sixties and enjoy a long and comfortable retirement. This “golden age” of retirement security reflected the culmination of efforts that started more than a century ago when employers first set up pensions. Gradually, over decades, we built an effective system with Social Security and Medicare as the universal foundation and traditional pensions—where the employer was responsible for all the saving and investment decisions—providing a solid supplement for about half the workforce. The increasing provision of retirement support allowed people to retire earlier and earlier.

This brief golden age is now over. Because of economic and demographic developments, our retirement income systems are contracting just as our need for retirement income is growing. On the income side, Social Security is replacing less of our preretirement income; traditional defined benefit pension plans have been displaced by 401(k)s with modest balances; and employers are dropping retiree health benefits. On the needs side, longer lifespans, rising health care costs, and low interest rates all require a much bigger nest egg to maintain our standard of living. The result of all these changes is that millions of us will not have enough money for the comfortable retirement that our parents and grandparents enjoyed.

If we do not recognize that we are veering off the road and take corrective action soon, millions of retirees will find that they are too old to return to work and have too little in savings—with no one to turn to for help. If we fail to recognize the problems and provide sensible solutions—now, when we can—history will judge us harshly. Millions of retirees will ask: “Why didn’t anybody warn us?” Or, “You could see it coming! Why did you fail to do what was needed to be done to protect us?”

We hope this book—a little like Paul Revere’s famous ride in 1775—will help raise the alarm and get government leaders, corporate executives, and individual workers thinking and talking about how to solve America’s impending retirement crisis. We propose a number of specific and doable adjustments to get us back on the road and heading safely to our intended destination.

[PowerToThePeople]

1. my calculated retirement age is 215. n/t

[RazzleCat]

16. The cause of your inability to retire

Retirement is a huge problem with the loss of pensions being offered by employers and replaced with 401k plans. Now you have to make all the decisions on where and what to invest into, and many times there are fees on your accounts that when you have small amounts eat up any profits you may have. (link to cost of fees over time in case the link does not work it is from CNBC). Don’t forget that the market goes up and down, if you end up retiring as it goes down, your in trouble. Combine the above with living paycheck to paycheck and it gets extremely scary for all of us not making large incomes for our area.

[randys1]

28. Spoiled and lazy I see...just kidding, a very funny response you have there. and probably true

[Cosmic Kitten]

2. You're saying "work forever" like it's a bad thing

[CTyankee]

6. People like to say that, but the reality is that if health problems don't take you out

of the workforce (at least full time work), then age discrimination probably will. You are old and cost too much. There are younger people out there who are at the start, not the end, of their careers, salary wise.

That's the cold, hard reality.

[Cosmic Kitten]

10. Agreed. The economy is rigged.

Discrimination is a problem.

The TPP will only make that worse
once living wage countries are forced
to compete with indentured workers.

If only there was something the Public could do???

[tblue37]

34. Yeah--like vote. nt

[SomethingFishy]

77. Vote for who?

The only people who would care to stop the TPP are the ones who DU'ers claim can never get elected.

[TheFarseer]

103. Rust belt folks demand

A reasonable moderate who will tell them their jobs are gone and all they can do is move from their home and get re-trained for a job that’s not stupid. Anything else would be socialism or xenophobia or something else bad. Hope that helps.

[GoneFishin]

13. Interesting point. Because that also means that you will have to work for lowerer

wages to entice employers into hiring you in your feeble years. So once again, it's win-win for the 0.1% and the 0.1%.

[randys1]

29. There is good news on that front, I think...Since the Koch bros want you working till you die, they

will provide jobs cleaning toilets at fast food franchises or the like for the elderly, so dont worry, you will be able to work.

But since enough Dems decided NOT to vote in 2016, the republicans now run everything and there is NO minimum wage, NO overtime, NO workers comp, NO days off, NO paid vacation, NO safe workplaces, NO unions at all...

You will be making $2 an hour cleaning shit out of toilets when you are 80 years old and you will be told that since you have a small refrigerator in your one room flat, you are rich.

Sometimes I am in awe at the level of numbness the american people have achieved, not understanding what is happening to them

[peacebird]

36. Maybe if the D's running in 2014 had actually run on progressive ideas

And given the people a REASON to vote for them. i vote, you vote, but the average person needs to be convinced. the Dems running did a truly crappy job of convincing anyone to bother voting. Add to that the mountains of money the cockroach brothers threw in, no suprise the average person turned away in disgust. Their whole "VOTE for me because I am better than the other guy" sales pitch is a loser.

[randys1]

38. You better hope it isnt a loser in the end, though, especially if you are a minority of any kind

[TheKentuckian]

51. A better pitch and relentless effort to back it up are a better hope investment.

Unlike some like to present many, probably most of us minorities are neither the destitute nor the "upwardly mobile" set. The status quo with some lame promises of "protections for the poorest" is not workable and is not a path towards workable either.

[whathehell]

101. I agree, although the truth is, working people who

don't vote whenever Republicans run for anything even slightly

substantial, are, to be kind, Clueless.

[JDPriestly]

83. Give Dems a candidate to vote for who will deal with employers who discriminate based on age

and who will lift the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes, and Dems will be out to vote.

We thought we were getting a candidate who would repair Social Security when we elected Obama. Oh, well. He hasn't said much about it now that he is in office. I think his plan to fix it was to lower the benefits. I'm on Social Security. Trust me. They are low enough now. If they lower them more, most seniors will be living below the poverty level. Can't reduce Social Security without a national crisis of a large proportion.

[magical thyme]

41. you can be healthy and not cost them a damn thing

they still don't want old people cluttering up the environment. They want young people who will follow orders without experience or critical thinking about the legality, morality, or long term ramifications of whatever lying, cheating and stealing behind the "business plan."

[brush]

56. Yep! Nowadays once you hit 50 they start trying to get rid of you.

If you make it to your late 50s, like say 58, it's 4 long years until you can take Social Security early at 62 (which is not the best thing since you lose about a fourth of your benefit) and even longer for Medicare to kick in at 65.

So during those long years you have to live off your savings and get another job, most likely a low-paying one is all you'll be able to get, to spell you until SS and Medicare.

At least the ACA is there now for health insurance. Before that you had to cough up 4 or 5 hundred a month to have adequate insurance.

[CTyankee]

60. I held out to 65 but threw in the towel once I knew they wanted me gone.

I got a part time job and it was fine (hubby had the health insurance at his job to make up for what Medicare didn't cover). But my mother died a few months later and I was her only heir. I still worked for two more years before a serious illness with a long recovery took me out of the workforce entirely. Fortunately, I had and still have a good investment adviser and that helps me now that I am totally retired. But without that extra I am sure I would have had some real problems.

[flamingdem]

66. true dat

so true

At least with ACA it's doable.. whew

[JDPriestly]

81. Thanks. Discrimination -- been there done that.

And the bosses don't pay you much in damages even if you do sue because they only have to pay for your lost income and emotional distress -- which as you age means less and less money out of their pockets.

And then there is the fact that in many cases, firing older people can be justified because the employers build a "file" (highly recommended by the folks who advise employers) that shows that the employee was fired because he/she could no longer do the job. That did not happen to me, but it happens often. Have a hearing loss or cataracts (most older people do) -- can't do the job anymore. You are fired.

It sounds so great to work past 62 or 64, but employers often won't allow it.

I had planned to work to 70. So much for that.

[KG]

3. i already know i'll work till i die. i do have a profession i can do sitting on my ass

expect no help from either politcal party on this issue.

[Prophet 451]

4. And that's what the PtB want

The final aim of the corporate class has always been to have a populace so desperate that they will work forever, for pennies, or a meal, or a dosshouse bed for the night. And once you're so broken down that you can no longer work, you're out on the street to starve.

[kaiden]

5. My mortgage will paid off in 20 years when I am 82.

No retirement for me.

[harris8]

14. 85 for me (just refinanced at age 55)

Being an eternal optimist, I'm hoping the real estate market will improve so I can sell this place (and buy something much smaller) long before I reach 85!

[CTyankee]

37. Oh, but you'll downsize. I've already faced that situation. I'm looking for a place to

land as my house is getting to be a bit too much for us and we have to pay more for help in things we used to do ourselves...

[brush]

57. You don't have to pay it off

You can sell the place, take your equity and buy something smaller with some of it and live off the rest.

[jwirr]

7. First you are talking about Social Security and then pensions. Aren't they two different things?

I realize that many workers when they retire find out for the first time that social security does not pay anything near to what they think they can live on but it is not impossible. We have 2 widows in the family who think they are going to starve.

From what I have been reading and seeing it is the lose of pensions due to actions by the company that is the real lose for those who do not plan to cut their cost of living when they retire. This part of the American Dream is definitely a nightmare.

I think this book is not the right track because so many companies are dropping their responsibility to the workers that it will reflect on the number of people who have only social security to depend on. Many 50 year old people who have been laid off are a reflection of this.

Also when I say that I live on it that simply means that I live in a low cost area and not someplace like NYC or other large city.

[TampaAnimusVortex]

8. Practically every retirement plan out there didn't factor in life extension.

Just wait until we get 200 years on average, or 500... Actually practical immortality is almost certainly available to at least some fraction of those currently living.

See

www.livescience.com/6967-hang-25-year-wait-immortality.html

[n2doc]

12. Don't worry. In the US that treatment will only be available to the ultra rich

The rest get to die early, as soon as they get sick and their remaining financial resources are mined out by the Health Care Industry…..

[TampaAnimusVortex]

46. I don't think so...

The cost of treatment will still scale downwards, much as plasma and LCD TVs costs drop. The cost of a lot of major medications drop to practically nothing as they go generic. My cholesterol and blood pressure medications cost pretty high until they went generic and now I pay practically nothing for them.

The demand for such technologies will drive their adoption and given new molecular manufacturing technologies become available in the garage, it would be very difficult to prevent people from getting their hands on them ultimately. Google up bioprinters or molecular printers.

[JDPriestly]

84. The TPP will delay the time in which drugs go generic. I susupect that is the reason that

Obama wants it. Big donors own the patents to a lot of generic drugs and the copyrights to a lot of our movies, music, etc. That's what I suspect the TPP is about. Big pharmaceutical companies do not want their drugs to go generic.

[Thinkingabout]

9. There has been some discussion of increasing the maximun amount of salary which FICA is taken.

Medicare is on all wages and it has helped to keep it afloat. SSI is in deep trouble and I think a lot of people is now on SSI because of the lack of jobs and of course there has been lots of scams. I currently work on a low wage job and many of my co-workers are working out if necessity if the only source is their social security, having a pension and 401k is necessary to survive financially. I could nit imagine not having my Social Security.

[n2doc]

11. And once again we are told things (like retirement and universal HC) are impossible to maintain

Yet the rest of the developed world will maintain them. Only in the USA are such things "impossible"

[closeupready]

23. +100. Millionaire writers who write these things don't want their own taxes raised.

Thus, as well-paid members of the 1%, they willingly propagandize against what are obvious answers like this:

Eliminate the cap.

[spinbaby]

26. Where are these millionaire writers?

The wriers I know are broke.

[n2doc]

35. Tom Friedman (aka the 'stache of freedom), David Brooks, George Will

Basically the punditocracy in DC and New York.

[daleanime]

15. This is true IF.....

we that it as a given that the top 1% deserve every dollars they have wrung from the rest of us over the last 30/40 years.

[ladyVet]

17. Yeah, I've pretty much accepted that.

I'm counting on any money I have after retirement coming from my own efforts. I'm working on building a writing career, something I've wanted to do since I was very young. I have no pension, no IRA, no 401K.

I'm barely more than six years away from early retirement, and I'm worried the Democrats I vote for don't care any more for me than those filthy repukes do. I expect it from people with (R) behind their name, though.

[LiberalEsto]

18. Don't worry. Your employers will force you out when you get into your 50s. nt

[alphafemale]

19. The Baby Boomers fucked over everything else

I pretty much knew I would never see a penny out of all the money I have been having picked out of my pocket over these decades and thrown into their trough.

[LiberalElite]

22. Funny, this "Baby Boomer"

is getting fucked over right along with you. It's a little more complicated than just blaming the greedy geezers. In that, the 1% has you bamboozled. Oh look, over there, the old folks playing shuffleboard. Aren't they just lazy entitled pigs.

Did you see that 30 years ago referred to in the post, when everything started to go downhill for working people? Before that I had every expectation that social security and a pension would support me in my old age; that I'd be able to stop working at 65 and take it easy like the previous generation. It was part of that old "American Dream." The money being "picked" out of your pocket? That's for Social Security and the idea was for it to be there for YOU too. Then Congress raised the retirement age for receiving full Social Security. Then unions started to shrink, at the same time employers began to drop pensions, foist insecure 401ks on us and put increasing responsibility for a secure retirement on employees. My employer froze the pension plan and that meant a loss of several hundred dollars a month for me. To have all these changes after working for decades meant it was too late for me and many others to start building that million dollars the media keeps telling us we'll need. IT GOT WORSE FOR LOTS OF PEOPLE NOT JUST YOU. Yes, I've saved some but it won't be enough - I couldn't start in time. I'm taking an online course in medical transcription in the hopes I can work from home - because I'm certain to lose my job before what's termed "normal retirement age". Yeah, I could live like a queen in retirement - but I'll have to move to Bangladesh. My retirement plan has been changed to Hope I Die Young. Yeah, we got it great. Nyah nyah nyah

[SammyWinstonJack]

27. The baby boomers funded their SS...was the reasoning behind raising the SS payroll tax

during the raygun administration which in turn has been looted by every administration since.

How did we fuck everything else is what I'd like to know.

I'm sure that poster will be right along to answer that question.

[2naSalit]

43. Me too.

Wonder where all that $$ I never saw in my wallet went to...? Sure I'll never see retirement, felt that way back in the '70s. And now it's reality.

At least you have a plan to work on, me, nada at present. I just hope I make it through the next day as it is.

My retirement plan:

[AZ Progressive]

74. The Silent Generation got through life with the least problems

The WWII generation suffered through the depression and the Baby Boomers have been hurt by the modern economy before they retire. The Silent Generation only barely went through the depression when young but got to enjoy the benefits of the postwar boom and got old enough to get the benefits of the 80's and 90's economies and retire just when the economy started going downward.

[kiva]

67. Reading is a wonderful skill.

Who do you think is currently reaching retirement age and not able to retire? Who is suffering from age discrimination in the workplace? Why, that would be the baby boomers who spent their entire working lives paying in Social Security so that the previous generations could retire...so perhaps you could back off of the whine.

[joshcryer]

69. +1

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

78. Oh c'mon Alpha

the system here is rigged and no one generation has any affect on the real reasons we are in financial difficulties. I'm a boomer, been laid off a few times, lost money when the market took a dump and work for about half of what I did when I was 40. The fact there are so man y boomers can't be laid at our feet, we didn't make ourselves!

[JDPriestly]

86. During the Reagan era, Social Security taxes were raised on baby boomers so that the baby

boomer retirement bulge would be covered. The Social Security law requires excess Social Security money be placed in a trust fund. There is a lot of misinformation out their spewed by the right-wing that is misleading people into thinking that the baby boomers' very existence and aging is to blame for the what people are being lead to believe is a Social Security crisis.

Baby boomers paid more into the system. That is why there is a surplus that is expected to extend for some 30 or so years, the time that is anticipated for the retirement of the baby boomer generation.

If we got rid of age discrimination, healthy seniors who need to work would work longer. But as one who was forced to retire before I wanted to, I have to tell you there are two sides to the early retirement trend. I wanted to work to age 70. Employers had other plans. I went back to school to get a degree in a new field so that I could work longer. Invested a lot of time and money and did well, but . . . . the field I chose has a rather odd structure that makes it hard for a person to enter it late in life. And that is what many people who think they are going to work forever will discover. The employers don't want them. Starting a new business in your 60s takes a lot of investment. If you have the money to do it, great. Most of us don't.

[dawg]

91. We will see our Social Security money, unless, of course, we allow them ...

to take it from us.

Pete Petersen and the like try very hard to push this sort of cynicism on to people. If our generation thinks the battle is already lost, then maybe we won't fight back when they come to take it from us for real.

[whereisjustice]

20. Corporate CEOs can retire anytime, generations of their families never have to work,

and when they do work they get placed on third base and get credit for hitting a triple.

Just look at Chelsea Clinton - $600,000 a year as special correspondent to NBC.

A kick to the gut of every hard working man, woman and child in America.

We don't need those family values in the White House.

[SammyWinstonJack]

30. +1

[bread_and_roses]

21. Time for a guaranteed national income (n/t)

[The_Commonist]

24. I'm an early 50something, and I've NEVER expected to retire.

I've been working since I was 13, and by the time I was 18 or 19 I knew that I would never "retire." Besides, why in the hell would I want to? The whole notion just seems bizarre to me. I've seen too many people (mostly men?) who retire and then quickly deteriorate and die. My father, my grandfather, uncles, friends fathers, and so on. One pal of mine had a dad who literally died on his very first day of retirement.

Granted, part of this is the fact that my parent's generation worked at a job and even a company for their entire careers, and did so until 65 or so. My generation doesn't have that luxury. So I expect to work in one form or another until I can't anymore.

Know what I'll do then? Throw a big party, invite everyone I know, give away all my stuff, and then take "the pill" and go to bed and sleep forever. I expect to do that on or shortly after my 77th birthday.

I also expect that to be common for people of my generation and beyond...

[kelly1mm]

55. My wife and I just retired in June. She is 46 and I am 44. We have never had taxable income over

$100,000 combined in our lives. We LOVE being retired! Our time is our own. We are even more busy than before and both have lost weight since retiring because we are much more active. I even stopped smoking!

No kids, no fancy cars, and paying off the house and retirement house early are what did it (and a lot of luck).

Since we have retired, we have met 4 other couples in ore area in their 40's that have retired. We have also been turned on to websites full of people doing the same. I think living below your means as a way of escaping modern wage slavery and the alienation it promotes is increasing, rather than decreasing.

[shanti]

68. No kids

That says it right there.

[kelly1mm]

73. I agree that the 'no kids' factor was probably the biggest single reason we were able to

retire in our mid 40's. We are not child free by choice, but have come to accept it. Looked into adopting but were never able to make that commitment.

[closeupready]

25. Eliminate the cap. Problem solved.

Next.

[SammyWinstonJack]

31. That's a 'tax' on the rich and that's why that will never happen.

It's only raised just enough to keep most workers paying in for the entire yr.

[closeupready]

50. Successful negotiators do not enter talks with modest goals.

[brentspeak]

32. This is laughable, Beltway, Pete Peterson-driven economic propaganda

The lead author, Charles D. Ellis, is a multi-millionaire investment consultant whose wealthy kids and grandkids stand to lose a few dollars if the FICA tax cap were to be lifted or eliminated. Hence, it's easier to hire a couple of pliable Boston College professors to co-write a book urging that the lower masses suck it up and wait until they're 70-years-old to retire -- if they even still have genuine jobs by that point in their lives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_D._Ellis

[PasadenaTrudy]

33. My brother and his wife plan to retire

at 64, in about 5 years. He's a plumber with a school district and she's a high school English teacher. They cannot wait! His hands hurt all the time and she's stressed out. Hope they can hold on another 5 yrs. They both have pensions...lucky. Then, off to Mexico or Thailand.

[vkkv]

39. No problem! Just be born into a family with money!

Like Mitt did!

[HardLineDem]

40. You're right, but there was no "golden age" for retirement income hereabouts

You're right, but alas, the idea that "Just 30 years ago, most American workers were able to stop working in their early sixties and enjoy a long and comfortable retirement." ain't so. Aside from the rich, only those relatively few with really good pensions -- say, a minority of long-time union members -- could look forward to a comfortable retirement. Social Security has never provided a comfortable income, nor was it really intended to -- it was intended to provide a bare subsistence income, and has ceased to do even that much for increasing numbers of low-wage and undocumented workers.

There are at least three problems with the IRA/401k system which has replaced pensions and is to supplement Social Security income, while encouraging investment:

First, the only ones who are guaranteed to profit from IRA/401k investments are the money managers, who get fees no matter how the investments fare. Their fiduciary responsibility is to their own companies, not to the investors. By contrast, some public retirement systems (such as the California Public Employees' Retirement System, I think) are responsible to the contributors. Why isn't it all money managers?

Second, an increasing proportion of the huge mass of retirement investments just flies around within various fractions of the financial system. At some point, this has ceased to contribute to real productivity in the economy -- it's just more sales of derivatives of derivatives of derivatives of... I'm pretty sure that this means less real income for most of us while we're working.

Thirdly, who can afford to save enough? Adviser after adviser tells us that to have a reasonable income after retirement, we must invest not 3% of our wages in a 401k or the like, but a consistently much larger fraction -- say, 15% or more, from our twenties 'till we retire. How many people do you know who can do that? The minimum-wage worker? The unpaid intern? You?

[Kokonoe]

64. Welcome to DU!

[marmar]

42. K/R

[KentuckyWoman]

44. This is absurd

May as well just flame me right now.

I just really wish we'd keep our heads straight on the necessities of Social Security vs. the desires. If you want to quit working at 65 and live till 90 so you can go out and play for 15 years or more then fine, but that's a choice you make and you have to save for. Expecting the social safety net to cover that is ridiculous.

Workers need to be given the full fruits of their labors and need a reliable way to save that's not at the mercy of the economic predators. Poorer or disabled workers wont' be able to save much if anything for old age. And poorer workers generally tend to be more beat up if they even make it to 65. We've got to make sure they are not so destitute they have to choose between medicine or food in spite of the fact some dear soul took them in to provide free housing.

All that said, expecting someone to do what they can to earn their daily bread as long as they are physically and mentally able is not unreasonable. Mitt Romney and Paris Hilton included.....

[JDPriestly]

87. The reality is that older workers face terrible discrimiination in the workplace.

That's why working until 70 is a dream, not a reality. And then there is the technological change that moves faster than the brain of the average 65-year-old.

I type fast, and I know how to wash dishes and serve tables. Those skills used to guarantee me at least some sort of job. But today, immigrants wash dishes and serve tables and there is little demand for typists.

Visit a senior citizens' center. Meet the people. That's you in your late 60s-90s. Balancing a checkbook, just standing up, are enough challenge for many of us over 62.

It sounds so easy. It seems so sensible. Until you have to live it.

Seniors don't complain much because they have the bare necessities thanks to Social Security. Take that away, and it will be the children of the seniors who bring back Social Security. It sure beats having to give mom your kids' bedroom.

[alarimer]

99. It's also ridiculous to expect everyone to want to work longer.

What if you do a hard, physical job (granted, most of those have no pension to speak of anyway)? You simply wear out eventually.

Working until 70 is fine for those of us who have office jobs (at least in theory), but truck drivers, brick layers, etc? Not really feasible.

[strategery blunder]

45. And just what does the author think will happen to unemployment if people work an extra decade?

So he wants to spike labor force participation among the elderly. Great! Now let's find them (millions of them) jobs.

Now their grandkids can't get an entry-level job because there are no openings. Happened to me, I couldn't find anything even remotely approaching full time until I was 29 (and even that's two part time jobs). I had the luck of graduating college in 2007, just when the economy started to soften, and we all know it crashed a year later. People panicked, held on to their jobs, and I couldn't find an opening to get my foot in the door, anywhere, other than scoring the standardized exams that are presently numbing down public education, and even that was only seasonal work.

Oh, and people who suffer delayed entry into the workforce as I did tend to have depressed earnings all their lives, compared to people who enter the workforce during good economic times. As a rule of thumb, our formative experiences entering the job market leave us more risk-averse, less likely to leave a job for better opportunities elsewhere, and more likely to put up with bad bosses to keep what crumbs we have.

The author of that book proposes to create a whole generation of depressed wage earners out of the young so the old can work longer? Just what does he think is going to happen to SS payroll taxes when the extra competition for jobs depresses wages even further down?

To say nothing of automation replacing low-wage jobs, we're gonna need a national basic income or things are going to get REALLY nasty around the time I'm middle age...

[JDPriestly]

90. Good points!

[Omnith]

47. Retirement worries are a first world problem.

[xchrom]

52. well if you live in the first world it's a big fuckin problem.

i don't wanna work forever.

[Omnith]

59. I'm just saying the idea and existence of "retirement" is relatively new and could only exist in

a wealthy society. Hence first world problem.

[hay rick]

65. Living past the age of 32 is a relatively new phenomenon.

I guess we should all be grateful and just SHUT UP when the subject is avoidable poverty of a huge swath of our fellow citizens. I've got mine.

[hfojvt]

72. depends on how you define "relatively new"

Certainly many people were living long past the age of 32 over 300 years ago.

Here are some of my relatives (although I cannot vouch for records from before 1600)

Thomas Upson 1600-1655 55 years
Richard Upson 1575-1635 60 years
Elizabeth Fuller 1626-1714 88 years
John Plumb 1594 - 1648 54 years
Mary Baldwin 1625 - 1707 82 years
John Baldwin 1470 - 1545 75 years
Michael Hauser 1624-1687 63 years
Anna Dreher 1624-1695 71 years
Johann Rees 1586 - 1671 85 years

The same might be true of earlier times, although I have no records before 1600.

I looked those up, sort of at random (after all 55 is NOT exceptionally long) after I read a very respected historian say this about Native Americans in the year 1600 "Because of high infant mortality - an estimated 30 percent before the age of five (not much higher than rates in many parts of Europe) - life expectancy at birth was only 21 to 23 years (it has been estimated at 23.5 for Paris in the early eighteenth century), but those who survived to age 15 could expect to live to 35 - not much less than their English contemporaries." (TBY pp 26-27)

As much as I respect the guy, that is just nonsense, as my own research shows. Granted I am not looking at ALL of society there, but there certainly were more than a few who were living long past age 35.

[Cleita]

53. What's that supposed to mean?

Should we just execute people when they reach the age of sixty five, then those miserable white haired scarecrows won't be demanding to eat and have some creature comforts?

[Omnith]

61. I didn't say it wasn't a problem.

[LeftyMom]

71. They're really not, but people in agrarian societies breed their retirement plan.

The kid(s) who get your land/business/household goods look after you in your dotage.

It helps that the lack of medicine means you'll likely die of pneumonia long before you're confused and incontinent.

But retirement isn't a first world problem, the idealization of non-extended family housing arrangements are just a first world wrinkle on a universal problem.

[JDPriestly]

92. In the third world, seniors live with their children. Problem solved.

The children of the parents take care of their parents in their senior years.

Our culture does not make that easy. Young couples expect to have a private bedroom without mom sleeping in a corner. It's not just the seniors who cause the retirement worries.

[Omnith]

96. I think it is good kids take care of the parents in old their old age.

I wish more would do it.

[Cleita]

48. The sad thing is with just a few tweaks to the FICA taxes,

they could easily give every recipient of SS $1,000 more an month and still keep it funded forever. Bernie Sanders has said so. The Fascist wing of the Republican Party has been so successful in convincing the stupid that the $1.6 trillion in the fund has been spent, which is a blatant lie, that they are convinced the fund is bankrupt.

[Kaleva]

49. I've adjusted to living on $1158 a month SSDI.

[Triana]

54. I wonder how many of those affected by this VOTED

in the last two - four elections? Particularly the last one in 2014?

Duh.

[JDPriestly]

93. The Clintons are very good friends of the Pete Peterson crowd.

Voting helps only if the candidates you vote for are on your side.

Sometimes none of the candidates are on your side.

I'm planning to vote either for Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders in 2016.

I don't believe that I can count on any other candidates to be on my side as a senior.

[Triana]

95. People need to pay close attention and vote accordingly.

I know that only 60% of eligible voters voted in 2014. That's insane. And Republicans are hellbent on gutting Soc Security (yes, along with some Dems - I say vote against ANYONE who advocates cuts)

[AgingAmerican]

58. But Wall Street needs those pensions!

...to feed their degenerate gambling habit..

[truedelphi]

62. I hate to be such a damn cynic, but the way it is set up -

Only the super rich and the very lucky KNOW for certain that all their plans will see them through.

No mattter what your planning and saving entails - one illness and one group of Big Insurers who don't need to help you with that illness can wipe it all out.

As someone who watched as a medical bankruptcy forced us to utilize our retirment monies to survive an illness that Kaiser Permanente was disinterested in treating, I don't see any guarantees that being prudent matters all that much.

Plus I am hearing more horror stories every day of the week from older neighbors and friends who rely on Kaiser and are told that "no, you don't need treatment - what you think you need is not necessary" so they go off and spend their retirement monies in order to continue breathing, or having their mobility or having a working, beating heart.

And the system ensures that the richer people who paid into Social Security at a proportion of their income much less than any one else - they live to survive to collect the Social Security funds, while most of the rest of the 99% face much steeper odds of doing so.



.

[liberal_at_heart]

63. K&R

[Quackers]

70. You should appreciate a job that allows you to stay active in your old age.

[nolabels]

75. Retirement is a stupid concept invented by lazy people

If all goes like it has for the last 56 years for me i am pretty sure i could get another 20 to 30 years at my present occupation. I am not looking for retirement at any rate.

Half the people i have seen who do retire often just die a few years after leave work anyway

[dawg]

89. I don't care what it is that you do, no employer is going to be ...

eager to pay an 86 year old to do it.

If you are serious, you definitely chose an appropriate user name. This is the sort of third-way thinking that is driving most Americans down towards third-world living standards.

[nolabels]

97. Another of our union shops down the street just retired a....

Seventy-six year old and he could of gone another ten years. Yea, i do plan on going as long as i can. I am fit and healthy and find my work as a truck mechanic still interesting after 37 years in the business. I may slow down some but it takes a lot of accumulated knowledge to be able to repair and rebuild things properly and that's why i enjoy it.

Employers want people who are efficient with their resources and that concept goes into most everything i do. Financially, I could retire in about eight years but it's not in any of my plans

[dawg]

100. Key word ....

"union".

[BubbaFett]

76. What's a pension?

I've heard of these mythical beasts.

[JDPriestly]

79. OK. As one who is retired.

If you want people to work longer, you have to penalize employers who lay off or fire workers before they reach the age of 70.

And you also have to enforce and raise the penalties on age discrimination both in hiring and in promotions within the workplace.

People "retire" early in many cases because their companies or jobs disappear or because they are fired in a reorganization or blatantly so that the boss or the company can hire someone younger. I recall talking some years ago to a homeless woman in her 50s back when I worked on a homeless project. She had a scar on her face and said she had worked as a waitress when she was younger but she couldn't get a job any more because the restaurants wanted to hire younger, prettier women. That is true in a lot of fields. And not just for women. If a man drives a truck, an employer may look at him as past his prime when he reaches 60.

So, if you want people to work longer, you have to provide negative and positive incentives to employers to hire and retain older employees. I've been on the laid off for age end of things myself. It's a really bitter place to be when you know that people in your family live long, healthy and with sound minds. Very bitter.

Then there is the huge problem that yes as we age we get arthritis, heart problems, etc. Depends on our genetic make-up and how we live our lives. But in most cases a person has more energy and is healthier in their 40s and 50s than in their 60s and 70s.

So if you could not just make people live longer but give them more energy, quicker movements, better balance, etc., then the idea of working longer might "work," but . . . . .

Then as to 401(K)s: if we are to rely more on 401(K)s, we need a lot of reform on Wall Street. I have a 401(K), and I don't get anywhere near the returns that the 1% and the .01% are getting. Until there is a lot more fair play and justice on the stock market, the 401(K), investment route is not going to lift very many retirement boats. The yachts maybe for those who can afford them. But not the little row-boats that people can afford on an average income of from $15,000 - $50,000.

Another problem with 401(K)s is that they require making decisions and paying attention to investments. Most people in their later years are just not up to and do not want to have to deal with investment decisions. It's hard enough getting to your doctors' appointments and balancing your checkbook and making sure you are not being cheated on your credit cards. Some older people opt for cash because keeping track of complex accounts, even a checkbook, paying bills on time, etc. can be too much at the age of 83 or 98.

Let's get real about the lives that seniors lead. The guys who write books like this one need ro visit a few senior centers in the country. They need to travel around with the Meals on Wheels folks. What kind of privileged world are they living in?

Sorry. But I don't think based on that article that the book is offering much help when it comes to funding retirement. The answer is to lift the cap on Social Security.

[dawg]

80. 90% of the working class won't be ready for retirement at all.

The .1% will respond by trying to turn that 90% against the 10% of us who scrimped, and saved, and lived beneath our means all those years in order to be prepared.

Don't fall for it.

Don't support schemes that would means-test Social Security and Medicare based on assets. People with $200,000 in a retirement account might sound rich to some, but many of them never made all that much money. They just lived cheaply, and it would be wrong to take from them, when it is the million-dollar-a-year income crowd that should be the ones making up for any shortfall.

[Zorra]

82. Recommend. nt

[djean111]

85. This book is written on the cherished premise that the Social Security cap must not be raised. nt

[RunInCircles]

88. This article is flawed in several ways.

Social Security is not replacing less of our retirement income the formula has not changed in 3 decades.
We are experiencing an adjustment made in 1983 that increased the age at which you are entitled to that benefit.
The full retirement age used to be 65. For people retiring now they have to work to age 66. For those retiring more than 6 years from now the full retirement age starts to increase to 67 years reaching that level for those born in 1960 and later. If you make it to your full retirement age SS provides more than 90% of the first 10K of 35 years worth of averaged wage adjusted earnings. Yes this does not lift you out of poverty. But if your average earnings were below 10K you have always been very poor or you did not work on the books and have much fewer than 35 years of reported income.
The problem is so few people have a pension plan provided to them from work. The company I worked for for over 16 years went belly up laid everybody off and I have never found employment since then with a company pension. This is the reason that nobody can retire early any more. So without connecting the dots the author veers into needing to do something to Social Security although the real problem is and remains the greed of those on Wall Street and the very wealthy.
When they say the golden age is over I ask why. If we would demand more, organize and support each other we could take back the benefits which have been pilfered from us by the 1%. Yes 401K's are one of the biggest gifts to Wall Street EVER. Invest your hard earned money so the rich wall street money manager can scoop his off the top regardless of how your money performs. And you can not even change money managers because then you would have to leave the 401K. No competition and years of them helping themselves to your money is the perfect gift if you are on Wall Street.
Social Security is the only program still working for us. Leave it alone. If more funds need to be raised then there were almost 9 million people in 2013 who earned more than the income cap. Raise the income cap.
If Pete Peterson is so worried about Social Security I have a suggestion. If you exceed the income cap every year for 35 years your social security benefits over your remaining life expectancy are almost 1 million dollars. You don't need this. Go out there and convince your 10,000 richest friends to not apply for social security. This will save 10 trillion dollars which is the entire estimated 75 year shortfall of the entire system. Boom then you can take credit for saving Social Security.

[RunInCircles]

94. I apologise for my math mistake

10,000 time 1 million is only 10 billion not ten trillion. Accept my apologies for this error.

[DFW]

98. My job is fun and all, and I like traveling

But the hours and the stress do add up. I'm retiring at age 85 at the latest, no matter what the financial circumstances.

[raging moderate]

102. Life expectancy is not rising significantly, except in a few small subgroups.

I am not an expert in this subject, but the facts I have found indicate that the recent advances in longevity are not a valid factor in Social Security policy. The situation is about as follows. Naturally, rich people are tending to live much longer; they have more control over stress factors in their lives. Money talks. And it works. They receive much better nutrition and medical care, and more assistance with onerous chores, and more consideration of their needs and desires in all phases of life. For people in middle income levels, it's really about the same or maybe a year or two longer. I seem to remember that lower-income men are holding pretty steady, but, for lower-income women of all races, it has recently declined just a little.
This idea that we are all suddenly living 20 years longer is a canard used by the right-wingers to torpedo the Social Security and pension systems for lower income people.