Raise the retirement age

[Green Line]

Why not?  It hasn't kept up with life expectancy.  The longer people are taking their social security the greater burden it places on society.  It's not sustainable.  This is so obvious.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Is there a good argument for keeping it so low?

We're going to need a guaranteed income when robots or offshoring take half of our jobs.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Is there a good argument for keeping it so low?

It'd increase unemployment. There'd be less of a turnover with olds leaving their jobs and thus less jobs opening up.

[Green Line]

Is there a good argument for keeping it so low?

We're going to need a guaranteed income when robots or offshoring take half of our jobs.

It's definitely not guaranteed for you or me, no matter what promise theyre making right now.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, for starters, life expectancy is basically stagnant in the US right now (because that tends to happen when your welfare state is crap). But more importantly, I find it adorable how this "muh life expectancy is rising!!!!" talking point always neglects to mention whose life expectancy is actually increasing. It isn't that of those who most need pensions to survive after leaving work.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Is there a good argument for keeping it so low?

We're going to need a guaranteed income when robots or offshoring take half of our jobs.

It's definitely not guaranteed for you or me, no matter what promise theyre making right now.

I'm not talking about existing Social Security. Obviously there will need to be higher taxes on the rich.

[Green Line]

Well, for starters, life expectancy is basically stagnant in the US right now (because that tends to happen when your welfare state is crap). But more importantly, I find it adorable how this "muh life expectancy is rising!!!!" talking point always neglects to mention whose life expectancy is actually increasing. It isn't that of those who most need pensions to survive after leaving work.

Well then guess what, nobody will get anything.  Nice job.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Well, for starters, life expectancy is basically stagnant in the US right now (because that tends to happen when your welfare state is crap). But more importantly, I find it adorable how this "muh life expectancy is rising!!!!" talking point always neglects to mention whose life expectancy is actually increasing. It isn't that of those who most need pensions to survive after leaving work.

Well then guess what, nobody will get anything.  Nice job.

There is a third option. And a fourth. And a fifth. And more.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I don't favor policies that screw over young people.

[parochial boy]

I don't favor policies that screw over young people.

How does it hurt young people to not be paying for a 66 year old's pension?

I would rather raise the retirement age and at least get a reasonable pension than retire on a below subsistence pension, or worse, see the state pension abolished.

The real screwing over of young people was getting rid of defined benefit schemes, that pretty much ensures we get to retire into poverty in any case.

[muon2]

I don't favor policies that screw over young people.

How does it hurt young people to not be paying for a 66 year old's pension?

I would rather raise the retirement age and at least get a reasonable pension than retire on a below subsistence pension, or worse, see the state pension abolished.

The real screwing over of young people was getting rid of defined benefit schemes, that pretty much ensures we get to retire into poverty in any case.

Ironically it was young Gen-X'ers in the 1990's that drove the end of defined benefit plans. Workers in the new rapidly growing tech sector didn't want to stay with one firm more than a few years - in fact tech firms looked suspiciously at applicants who had worked 5 or more years with one company (my wife was working in that industry at that time). That meant those employees couldn't vest in a retirement plan, so they'd rather have their benefits in a 401k - originally designed as a supplement to a basic defined benefit pension. Eventually other older companies followed suit to compete for talent and keep pension costs down compared to the newer tech firms. Now the 401k is the supplement to Social Security which is the only defined benefit plan most workers see.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It hurts young people by creating less open jobs as I mentioned.

[The_Doctor]

There's a valid argument that raising the retirement age would hurt the jobs market by creating less vacancies for younger people (e.g., older people needing to make the retirement age). But by 2030, we're going to have to contend with a longer lifespan having consequences for when someone can retire or we have to simply replace the revenues for Social Security.

Now liberals will say "taxes," but explain why is raising the retirement age by 2-3 years is that bad comparatively, to shore up the system without raising taxes? The Baby Boomers are due to die off now, in greater numbers, so doing it now could mitigate the employment market issue for younger people (might be a bigger problem down the line).

In general, weighing the pros and cons, raising the retirement age seems generally an OK idea.

[Associate Justice PiT]

It hurts young people by creating less open jobs as I mentioned.

     I've thought about this idea before and I liked it, but I hit that roadblock. Old people need to leave the workforce to open spots for young people.

[DC Al Fine]

It hurts young people by creating less open jobs as I mentioned.

     I've thought about this idea before and I liked it, but I hit that roadblock. Old people need to leave the workforce to open spots for young people.

It's falling into the 'lump of labour' fallacy. There isn't a set amount of work to be divided up. Workers tend to consume more than retirees, which affects the number of total jobs.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

It hurts young people by creating less open jobs as I mentioned.

     I've thought about this idea before and I liked it, but I hit that roadblock. Old people need to leave the workforce to open spots for young people.

What if they can't afford to?

[Associate Justice PiT]

It hurts young people by creating less open jobs as I mentioned.

     I've thought about this idea before and I liked it, but I hit that roadblock. Old people need to leave the workforce to open spots for young people.

It's falling into the 'lump of labour' fallacy. There isn't a set amount of work to be divided up. Workers tend to consume more than retirees, which affects the number of total jobs.

     Does one additional worker (vis a vis retiree) require a sum of one additional employee in the economy to provide all services for? If not, then we eventually run into a problem regardless.

It hurts young people by creating less open jobs as I mentioned.

     I've thought about this idea before and I liked it, but I hit that roadblock. Old people need to leave the workforce to open spots for young people.

What if they can't afford to?

     Well that is an additional problem. It is true that many of them can't afford retirement.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I don't favor policies that screw over young people.

How does it hurt young people to not be paying for a 66 year old's pension?

I would rather raise the retirement age and at least get a reasonable pension than retire on a below subsistence pension, or worse, see the state pension abolished.

The real screwing over of young people was getting rid of defined benefit schemes, that pretty much ensures we get to retire into poverty in any case.

Economic productivity is extremely high in the United States and people shouldn't be forced to work longer when most jobs don't even offer paid vacations or half the amenities that jobs in other developed countries do.  Most proposals to raise the retirement age do not affect people over the age of 55.  (Not that it really matters though because most people end up working well past their expiration date anyway.  Nobody talks about that, of course.)

[Green Line]

There's never going to be a solution to this crisis which is "fair" for everyone.  That's why it's a crisis.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

There's never going to be a solution to this crisis which is "fair" for everyone.  That's why it's a crisis.

What crisis?  Lots of short-term thinking by Boomers, sure, but Social Security is fine.

[DC Al Fine]

It hurts young people by creating less open jobs as I mentioned.

     I've thought about this idea before and I liked it, but I hit that roadblock. Old people need to leave the workforce to open spots for young people.

It's falling into the 'lump of labour' fallacy. There isn't a set amount of work to be divided up. Workers tend to consume more than retirees, which affects the number of total jobs.

     Does one additional worker (vis a vis retiree) require a sum of one additional employee in the economy to provide all services for? If not, then we eventually run into a problem regardless.

I have no idea about the specific multiplier effect. I was on mobile in my last post, so allow me to elaborate a bit.

All non-workers are ultimately supported by someone else's work, whether it's kid through their parent's labour, poor retirees pensions collected via income tax etc. Even the independently wealthy are ultimately supported through equity and bond income generated by people working. Therefore, if fewer people work, we have fewer people doing useful stuff supporting a larger percentage of the population, making society worse off.

To reverse the analogy, if we had a generous state pension and cut the retirement age to 50, every 22 year old could find a job, but the society would be much worse off.

A better approach IMO would be to integrate elderly people into daily community life more thoroughly and reduce the costs of living for retired people. Extended family living arrangements are a good thing: How much better would it be to leave your children in the care of their grandparents rather than an understaffed daycare that you can barely afford?

Moreover, why must the wealthy and middle-class elderly retire to lavish tropical locales and country-club style nursing homes

While I agree with the general sentiment here, a lot of this is cultural, and was in part driven by the elderly having no options. It'd be pretty hard to affect this with state policy, and a lot of the changes that would support this probably wouldn't be favoured by the left.

e.g. My mother was from a fairly progressive household and married into a religious traditionalist family. Guess which set of grandparents offered unlimited free babysitting when I was born

[DC Al Fine]

The retirement age is way too blunt an instrument to regulate pensions and retirement. In Canada, the retirement age affects:

a) When you can enter the government's guaranteed income program for seniors
b) When you can get the basic state pension
c) When you can collect our equivalent to Social Security without clawbacks.

Obviously if the population is aging, we need to tinker with with the retirement system to make it sustainable, but look at what touching the retirement age affects: everyone from the infirm and destitute up to the very wealthy.

A better way to go about this is to tinker with clawbacks in the various benefit programs. That way the poor and manual workers can retire to a reasonable standard of living, while the well to do either save more or work longer to provide a better standard for themselves.

In my experience, state pensions are much too generous to the middle and upper middle class.  Do you know what the household income of a Canadian couple to begin having their state pension clawed back? Nearly $150,000! We would never dream of giving $1k a month to working folks with $150k income, but that's totally acceptable here. Meanwhile the minimum income program for the elderly leaves much to be desired. A good solution would be to drop the clawback threshhold, using part of the savings to make the system more sustainable and the other part to top up pensions for the very poor.

[Sopranos Republican]

There's never going to be a solution to this crisis which is "fair" for everyone.  That's why it's a crisis.

Right. So it must be the fault of people who want to retire before keeling over on the job at age 70. Let's just ignore the fact that almost $3 TRILLION has been stolen from Social Security. How about slashing the military-industrial complex's funding, and take care of our elderly and our veterans. Maybe even increase the tax rate on millionaires by a couple of percentage points, but OH NO I suppose that wouldn't be "fair" to poor Halliburton now would it?

[JustinTimeCuber]

haha. no. Social Security is already pretty weak, so, would making it weaker be... good? I don't really understand.

[Antonio the Sixth]

There's never going to be a solution to this crisis which is "fair" for everyone.  That's why it's a crisis.

Rich person says poor people need to bear the brunt of sacrifices to avoid "a crisis". Neoliberalism at its finest.