From CNBC:
And they're not even mentioning the effects of health conditions on retirement decisions.
Raising full retirement age to 67 was a bad idea. Increasing it further would be a terrible idea. People need security in retirement and Social Security is the only assurance that the vast majority of Americans have or will ever have.
A stark reality of retirement planning is that your future is riding on the quality (read: plausibility) of your assumptions. Abject optimism can be dangerous. ...
[A] potential flawed assumption is that you will be able to keep working past 65. Yet the recently released 2017 Retirement Confidence Survey by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute finds that more than half of workers say they expect to still be on the clock past age 65. By comparison, less than 15 percent of today's retirees kept working that long. ...
It's simply too risky to assume you will indeed be able to work longer. A survey by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies (TCRS) found that nearly two-thirds of retirees left the workforce earlier than expected because they were laid off, reorg-ed out of a position, or due to general unhappiness with a job. Only 16 percent of retirees who exited the work force earlier than they expected did so because they felt they could financially afford to.
Moreover, a new report from Prudential puts a dollar value on why your current employer may not be inclined to do back flips to keep an older you happy and engaged. The estimated one-year cost to a firm when an employee delays retirement: $50,000. ...
Raising full retirement age to 67 was a bad idea. Increasing it further would be a terrible idea. People need security in retirement and Social Security is the only assurance that the vast majority of Americans have or will ever have.
5 comments:
I just retired from an office job a few months before my 70th birthday. The last few years have been tough. I just can't do what I used to do when I was younger.
I've been totally exhausted all the time of this last working year. Now every day that I wake up and don't have to go into that office is a gift!
Ability to work at an older age is not the main issue at play. Rampant age discrimination on the part of American employers is the issue. How are these seniors supposed to get a job at all? Who is going to hire them? My own mother had to retire because nobody would hire her. And then, once she started receiving social security benefits, the dollar amounts of the monthly checks were below poverty level. When you reach old age, you cannot find work because nobody will hire an old person. Raising the age limit for maximum benefits only lowers the monthly benefit amount for more and more seniors. We have a national debt. The defense budget is the largest part of the budget. Where are our priorities? Our country treats seniors like garbage. I think seniors should receive a medal for reaching age 65.
Isn't the true intention here a higher retirement age with life expectancy going in reverse for large numbers equals lower payouts because fewer will get there? Shred the disability part and there's no bridge left--you are part of the population reduction. Too cynical?
I don't think it is too cynical. Some on the right want to shrink those parts of government which don't directly benefit the financial elite. Libertarians want to shrink almost all parts of government. Those philosophies manifest in a constant pressure on programs like Social Security, SNAP, housing assistance for the poor, and similar programs. If you want to kill big, popular programs like those you have to weaken them first. Snip away at the edges by raising the retirement age. Weaken then by creating false impressions that they are full of fraud and waste. Threaten their funding by manufacturing crises. Underfund agency operations so the waits for decisions or service get so long that more disability claimants die before getting benefits or give up.
The higher retirement age was passed back in the mid 80s, over 30 years ago. Something needed to be done and still needs to be done to make SSA solvent long term. Recent changes in deemed filing rules will help a bit. I have never understood while a widow who files at age 60 gets her PIA plus 32% in DRCs when she files RIB at 70. She wasn't giving up benefits until age 70. Pay her the full PIA at FRA and be done with her.
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