What's wrong with the idea of later retirement age?

[leftyladyfrommo]

I just read an article from the Washington Post that stated 50% of people have to retire earlier than they wanted to.

The main reason is illness that prevents them keeping up with the 9 to 5 grind.

That's the real problem with this early retirement stuff. I just know from experience that people over 60 just can't keep up. Your health just starts to go downhill.

[NRaleighLiberal]

1. It's not about when we retire - it's more about when benefits start to kick in

[Wounded Bear]

2. Many jobs just do not allow it...

Hard, blue collar jobs can really wear someone down. I retired early, because I couldn't find any white collar jobs and found myself at 58-62 doing jobs better suited to people half my age.

It's another move to weaken retirment and drive down labor costs by keeping people in the workforce until they drop dead in harness.

[randome]

3. Different people, different age limits.

But we should, as a society, be progressing, not trying to keep everything the same. We have the resources (money), we just need the will to become the envy of every country on Earth.

Instead, the GOP wants us to act like paupers because they can't see anything else.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[jwirr]

4. And as far as I know there is no law that forces people to retire. It is the companies that force

early retirement or am I wrong?

[leftyladyfrommo]

10. Companies just find ways to force older employees out.

Usually they just start piling on more and more work and more and more pressure until the person just can't stand it any more.

People who have always had excellent reviews all of a sudden start getting horrible reviews and supervisors start treating them awful.

It's the most degrading, awful experience for employees who have always taken great pride in their work.

[jwirr]

12. IMO that is exactly why the age for eligibility should be lowered not raised. We already have

problems finding jobs for anyone over 50.

[leftyladyfrommo]

17. Either that or we as a society should come up with work

that is suited to older workers. That way when you simply can't keep up with the younger workers you just move on to another tier of meaningful work that is better suited to your abilities.

[jwirr]

21. There is a govenment program that allows companies/non-profits to hire people over 55. I worked

in that for about 2 years - archivists at a museum. They did create a job for me later outside the program. But the problem the company that hires is supposed to be creating a long time job. Most just use it to subsidize their company. For the group that is having trouble finding work because of age this could be expanded.

However, we need to understand that this program is more about subsidizing the company so they can hire a worker for a time than it is about creating jobs. Many companies hire the worker until they are no longer subsidized and then hire another worker who is 55.

[hollowdweller]

22. You often get slower when you get older

Two of my friends at work wound up getting in trouble with management and actually got suspended for 2 weeks before they retired.

We worked casework and both fell down in production after they had been in the hospital, one for chrons disease and one for active Hep C and management went after them. Their illnesses and age affected their concentration so they were producing less cases.

Luckily they both wound up working thru lunch and breaks and about an hour after work off the clock and managed to make it to retirement w/o getting canned.

[CTyankee]

27. that happened to me and I either had to retire or get a lawyer to threaten an

age discrimination suit. I was 65 so I took my SS and got a part time job. Six months later my mother died and I was able to inherit some money but if I hadn't, I don't know how I would have stayed on under threats I was getting regularly. Sure enough, over the next year every woman over the age of 60 was GONE...

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

5. It blocks younger people from getting those jobs.

If people could retire EARLIER (and still get the benefits to allow them to live without a job), we wouldn't have to worry as soon or as much about automation making people unnecessary. Another good move would be shrinking the workweek to 35 hours while maintaining the 40 hr pay, opening up more jobs still.

[Live and Learn]

8. +1 nt

[jwirr]

15. Another good point. It was one of the reasons after WWII that the women went back to being

housewives - so the returning vets could have work. And of course I am not suggesting that women do that today - most families need two incomes today. But in the job market we have allowed one demographic to be replaced with another before.

[hollowdweller]

23. Also either limiting overtime or making it pay double time.

Would force employers to hire more young folks

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

25. And no more of this nonsense of salaried workers working 80 or 100 hour weeks.

Some sort of max cap, so that even if you're salaried, you automatically get extra pay if you go beyond maybe 100 hours every two weeks.

[Sherman A1]

6. Well,

for some it might be just fine. Others not so much as pointed out in another post above. If you have a physically demanding job, which includes such things as construction, warehousing, mechanics, retail, transportation, food service and a host of others your body just might not be able to make it to a later retirement age and need full benefits sooner.

[hollowdweller]

24. That's why we have an explosion of disability claims

At one point a lot of people who worked physical jobs had retirement and health insurance.

Now we have a LOT of people who are working service jobs on their feet or lifting with NO retirement.

If you are a cook, or a nurse aid, or work in a dept store most people around 50 to 60 will begin to have back problems and arthritis. Some just because of their age will have cardiac problems.

So maybe those people can't do their jobs anymore but they can't retire at 60 anymore so they go for disability. Then there is the person who has a job, no insurance and has to take about 600 bucks worth of meds a month. Way better for that person to try to get disability, and Medicaid, then they can continue to work but under the amount of hours so they can keep their disability check. Working just doesn't pay for people who have medical expenses and no or very little insurance.

[liberal N proud]

7. I know a lot of people that you would be shocked to learn they were over 60

I golfed last week with a guy that was 70 and would run circles around many half his age.

Many people are retiring earlier than they wanted to is because they were forced out of the positions they had for many years.

You can retire at whatever age you want, you can't draw benefits until you are 62 and then you are penalized.

[ret5hd]

16. My bet is he wasn't a roofer or construction worker or farmer or miner.

I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

[leftyladyfrommo]

19. Some kinds of work just wear people out at a young age.

I have a friend that worked for Fed X grabbing parcels and throwing them to where they belonged. It had to be done fast and there was a lot of twisting.

Her back is destroyed and she is on complete disability and she is only 50.

[meaculpa2011]

34. I played golf last week with...

Phil, aged 92.

I had a good round, for me, (82) and beat him by two shots.

We broke even on money though because he birdied two of the par fives.

However... all this talk of raising the retirement age never takes into consideration that many people can't continue doing manual labor after a certain age. My grandfather spread asphalt until he was 65. He retired, collected three SS checks and died.

Whoever said hard work never killed anybody never did any hard work.

[MosheFeingold]

9. I agree health is the issue

I still work (and want to work) and am far past retirement age. Draw two pensions.

But I am also healthy, which is part genetics (both parents died at over age 100), and partly because I was always vain, was very careful with my diet and worked out way before it was cool to work out.

[leftyladyfrommo]

13. It's a funny thing about age discrimination.

You don't even realize it's there until you run smack into the wall. You just work along at your job expecting to keep on until you can retire and 65 or whatever.

And then, wham. All of a sudden your work isn't good enough, your supervisor starts to treat you like dirt. And you get forced out just because the work place becomes absolutely intolerable.

And no retirement party for you. You just become dirt that they want to sweep out the door.

[MosheFeingold]

35. Fortunately I never had that experience

To the contrary, they were begging me to stay, as I had a lot of institutional knowledge.

[GeorgeGist]

11. Regrets of the dying ...

2. I wish I didn't work so hard.

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

http://hospicepatients.org/five-regrets-of-the-dying-bronnie-ware.html

[leftyladyfrommo]

14. The problem is trying to find work that pays enough

so that you can live an OK lifestyle and still save something.

Jobs that you can work at and really enjoy and make a living at are really hard to find.

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

26. That's a good point - that regret is sort of 'self-blaming', when chances are strong that the

reason they had to work so long was external, with poor pay for the work performed, so that they had to work more to make enough to survive.

[TBF]

18. I'd like to see it lowered to 60 - full benefits.

Most people are going to start working full-time jobs as adults between 18-22. Average of that is 20. 20-60 working each week is 40 years of laboring. I think that is more than enough.

Average lifespan in US is 78.74 years (2012). That's close to 80 and might increase a bit if we don't work folks to the bone. After paying in 40 years it seems that drawing out those benefits for an average of 20 years makes sense to me.

Of course it doesn't make sense to Congress because they like to raid the kitty in order to give themselves raises & invade countries. But if Social Security were a true lockbox program it would work.

[leftyladyfrommo]

20. That would make way too much sense. n/t

[PowerToThePeople]

28. My current predicted retirement age is 255 years old. n/t

[Javaman]

29. exactly. I used to work construction.

I knew guys that were in their late 40s early 50s and they looked much much older than that. It's a hard industry. Beats the hell out of your body.

[shanti]

33. absolutely

my brother is 55, and worked as a roofer for many years. unfortunately, that type of job really tore up his body. he now drives a big rig, but he will have to drive until he's 66-67 as he has nothing saved.

[TheNutcracker]

30. WHERE'S THE JOBS!

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

32. Jobs are available

We just keep shipping the work offshore, or bringing in people on H1B visas.

Stop either/both of those practices, and we'd have the jobs.

Those are mostly desk jobs. The jobs in factories or construction or mines etc will wear most people out before they reach 65.

[Historic NY]

31. Many civil service jobs come with age limits....

mostly police & fireman they have mandatory retirements. Some can get around it with inside jobs that require waviers but most are gone by the time 20-25-30 yrs rolls around. One of our best loved for fairness County & State Supreme Court judge just packed it in at 68, he probably could have stayed on but he is done. Most likely he will hear selective cases a few times a yr under special provisions.