Pesky Americans refuse to die on the job.

[noamnety]

"“Retirement was a 20th-century invention, but it’s kind of gotten out of control,” says John Shoven, an economist at Stanford University. “If you go back to 1900, most men worked until they couldn’t work anymore and died a few years later. Now, you can spend 40% of your adult life in retirement.”

"While the solution—working longer—sounds straightforward, older workers face powerful incentives to retire sooner rather than later, says Olivia Mitchell, a professor of business, economics and public policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Those incentives range from age discrimination in the workplace to certain provisions in the tax code and rules for Social Security and Medicare."

The solution? The solution to us not working til we're disabled, then dying shortly thereafter?

http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-get-people-to-delay-retirement-1458525863

[Human101948]

1. Bah, humbug!

"At this festive season of the year, Mr Scrooge, ... it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir."
"Are there no prisons?"
"Plenty of prisons..."
"And the Union workhouses." demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?"
"Both very busy, sir..."
"Those who are badly off must go there."
"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."
"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

[gratuitous]

2. If job duties were no more strenuous than that of a Stanford economist . . .

Oh, and we could draw a full paycheck for coming up with such dimwit pronouncements as made by Professors Shoven and Mitchell, we could all work well into our 70s. For folks whose hands aren't quite that soft, good-paying light duty work for people in their late 50s and into their 60s isn't quite that available.

[noamnety]

3. That thought occurred to me as well.

It's a lot easier to be nostalgic for the good old days when workers worked themselves to death when you have a white collar job, yep.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. I used to work for a living and found it a highly overrated pastime.

[NBachers]

5. If I die at 82 and spend 40% of my working life retired, then I retired at 56.

Figuring that my adult life started at 18.

I'll be 67 next week, and I don't know when I'll be able to afford to retire.

I think John Shoven-up-his-arse is drunk and deluded. They both act as if retirement is a plush luxury that tempts non-deserving proles. If that's how reality works in their circle, I'd advise them to get out into the actual, real world a bit more.

They must be sitting in the Condi Rice chair at Stanford.

[Initech]

6. Hey! Quit giving our corporate masters pointers!

[Katashi_itto]

7. Well Hillary will make sure you never see retirement. After all Bernie just wants to give out free

stuff. Like healthcare, living wages, college. Very overrated.

[milestogo]

8. Discrimination in the workplace begins at 50

and gets worse after that. There should be a way to penalize employers for doing it.