Retired old people who aren't just ... busy being sick and dying give back to their communities in HUGE ways. We had someone's grandpa come to our robotics competition to cheer the team on. The old people in my building do all the serious political organizing and man the polls. I'm too busy working being in my 40s and all that.
Raising retirement ages takes away more than just "retirement" ... it makes everything harder.
In Australia, it's now 67.5 for men, 65 for women; the plan is to push it to 70 for men soon. It's all about saving on government pension payouts, not the workforce or health, and it shits me up the wall.
Sure, if you WANT to keep working beyond pension age and you're capable, go for it. But forcing people to keep working, especially those not in office work, is criminal.
@futurebird You make a good argument that a younger retirement age is better, giving more people more years to do the unpaid work that benefits everyone.
Take this to its logical conclusion: A #UniversalBasicIncome is like retirement, without dictating when you're no longer allowed ro work for money. With #UBI (or #UniversalLivableIncome) there would be so many more people who end the rat race working for money just to stay alive, and now work for no money to make life better for all.
@futurebird@vanfunfun Yes, but: community organization, politics, etc., these are things all people should have time to do, not only elder people. Rising retirement age is bad because it is unnecesary and unjust, but expecting old people to carry the heavy part on those things is a symptom of an awful system, where people in working age are squeezed and deprived of their time to live a true life.
@futurebird YES. Lately my retired mom's been helping multiple refugee families, including protracted fights with bureaucracy to get them their benefits -- which no one else in her church group can do because they don't have hours of free time to go down to the Medicaid office, call local reps for hours and hours, etc etc. (It also helps that she's one of the most politely bullheaded people I know, lol)
@futurebird a lot of retired people spiral into depression in our culture if they base their self worth on paid labor, unlike the unpaid laborers of the world.
@futurebird a lot of retired people spiral into depression in our culture if they based their self worth on paid labor, unlike the unpaid laborers of the world.
@futurebird I think retirement age should be the age past which employers don't want to hire folks for roles for which they're perfectly qualified. So right now, about 48.
@futurebird Between 1950 and 2016, remaining life expectancy at age 65 regardless of gender or ethnicity increased from 13.9 years to 19.4 years. That is, the average number of years spent in retirement if everyone was going to retire at 65 increased by about 40%. At the same time people spent more years and more money on getting an education. Something has to give. Either you raise eligibility age, increase payroll taxes, cut benefits or bankrupt social security. Which is it?
Even if you go with the goofy framing it's not "in crisis" ... it is supposed to be funded for like 30 years but falls short a few. That's what they use to engender the need to strangle the whole program in the bathtub... as Ronald Wilson Reagan once said.
Raise the cap. Add a few percent extra for those of us over 100k a year. That does it. More than does it. Technically they are always forced to be funded for a much longer period than other government operations. It's a bit extreme. But to the extent that there is an issue it's tractable.
I'm not convinced there really is a serious problem at this point.
@futurebird Retired at 62. Work the polls, am on the local dem committee, on the steering committee for an arts festival, do my hobbies, but I still consult part time because i love my field and it keeps my mind sharp.
@futurebird A friend of mine who retired in his early 60s spent the last 25 years of his life helping low-income folks prepare their tax returns after realizing that many didn’t know about the EIC. Started a program w/a local nonprofit that became a model for state gov’ts. Probably helped hundreds of thousands of people, overall. I learned this at his memorial service.
@futurebird Retired people are often a safety net for younger working parents. We had teacher strikes in our province recently and thousands of grandparents cared for children. Also when children are home sick from school.
This raising the retirement age BS is global. Every so often you see some serious guy on the news explaining with a serious voice how important it is to raise the retirement age.
Very true about the importance of older people to the community. My mum (retired teacher) helps immigrant mothers with their swedish and other education. This has helped several immigrant women to get a education and jobs.
@futurebird I am 50 and if everything goes right (ha) I hope to retire at 60, minimum age for my employer’s few remaining retirement benefits. That decade feels so long right now. If it turned into 15 or 20 years… there would be a lot of crying. And probably my work productivity would nosedive.
@futurebird I retired at 61 and got to spend time with my brother then my friend as they went through separate terminal illnesses. I am so thankful that I wasn’t working and could just be with them as chauffeur, sounding board and company.