This post is a bit of a placeholder, as I need to dig up some statistics.<\/p>\n
But fundamentally, one of the responses to lack of retirement savings is the \u201cjust don\u2019t retire\u201d approach \u2014 either individually, planning on working indefinitely due to lack of retirement savings\/benefits other than Social Security, or as a solution to the lack of retirement savings by Americans generally.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
True, early retirement to live a life of leisure is available to a declining percentage of Americans, as \u201c30 and out\u201d pensions disappear.\u00a0 (My husband and I still hope to early-retire, or have a career change, at least \u2014 he dreams of being a flight instructor \u2014 but we save aggressively and live modestly relative to our earnings.)<\/p>\n
But moving retirement age to 70 or 75?\u00a0 <\/p>\n
It\u2019s true that Americans are living longer than ever, and that life expectancy is expected to continue increasing indefinitely.\u00a0 But is the age at which the typical American can productively remain in the workforce really increasing?<\/p>\n
Statistics tell a different story \u2014 though I can\u2019t recall where I read these statistics, studies have shown that a\u00a0very large\u00a0percentage of Americans who intended to work to \u201cnormal retirement age\u201d or beyond ended up in early retirement (or \u201cnormal retirement\u201d whether they planned otherwise) due to job loss or ill health.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
If we move to a significantly later retirement age, we\u2019ll have a sizeable number of Americans on disability in the new interval before the new retirement age, and multiply the existing inequities between those who game the system, those who play by the rules, and those who don\u2019t even know how to enter the game \u2014 and we\u2019ll have all this compounded by those who worked blue-collar jobs their whole life long, and now, in principle, could move to white-collar jobs but aren\u2019t really capable of learning the new skills required.\u00a0 (How many greeters does Wal-Mart need anyway?)<\/p>\n
We\u2019d also have to deal with age discrimination, which is currently illegal if you\u2019re under age 70, but is very difficult to prove, so that very few age-discrimination cases are successful.\u00a0\u00a0And we\u2019ll need to be prepared to pay out unemployment compensation to the large numbers of elderly\u00a0who can\u2019t find work.\u00a0 \u00a0 <\/p>\n
In any event, here\u2019s my personal experience:\u00a0 a little under two decades ago, I experienced a parent being forced out of his job due to (he believed) having reached early retirement age and management wanting to make room for younger people to advance.\u00a0 A decade ago, that parent was working at a part-time job to have something to do, but was also going on cruises and enjoying himself.\u00a0 Now that parent, at the age of 74, has seen his health and strength deteriorate to the point that falls (and the difficulty getting back up again) are a routine part of his life.\u00a0 Sure, at that same age, his own father was participating in mammoth digs in South Dakota (well, maybe somewhat younger; I\u2019m not really sure, but in any event he was quite active and healthy for a long time).\u00a0 At the same time, my father-in-law, who\u2019s 72, has been weak for quite some time and just underwent major heart surgery.\u00a0 Mom (also 74) is still working (retail) and mom-in-law (69) is quite active with volunteering and still bikes around town.\u00a0\u00a0Bottom line: \u00a0none of us can predict when and how severely age will take its toll.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This post is a bit of a placeholder, as I need to dig up some statistics. But fundamentally, one of the responses to lack of retirement savings is the \u201cjust don\u2019t retire\u201d approach \u2014 either individually, planning on working indefinitely due to lack of retirement savings\/benefits other than Social Security, or as a solution to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[450],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actuarial"],"yoast_head":"\n