Work Till You Drop, or You’re 70, Whichever Comes First

Unlike in France, the U.S. Social Security system is running a surplus—$2.3 trillion, in fact, projected to last till 2037. Yet raising the retirement age, as high as 70, seems to be Washington’s favorite bright idea. President Obama appointed a Deficit Commission to figure out how to bring down the national debt, but it’s been talking about Social Security instead.

Commission members are senators and congresspeople, CEOs, former high-level government appointees, a former investment banker. These are rich people with high-paid desk jobs, who seem to love their work (judging by how they keep running for office well into their golden years). Their own Social Security checks will be a tiny percentage of their comfortable retirement income, if they ever retire. What’s the scene in their conference room? Is it all numbers to them?

Behind those closed doors, they’re certainly not seeing the faces of the workers who’ll have to run their own numbers. Think of a non-union home care aide with no benefits: “I could retire at 65 when Medicare kicks in, but then my benefit will only be $11,000 a year, or I could get $12,000 if I wait till I’m 69, but will my knees hold out till then?”

Folks like this aren’t being asked what they’d prefer: work an extra four years, or make those earning more than $100,000 start paying their fair share?

WHO’S KICKING GRANDMA?

Funny how all the Tea Party folks were so concerned about Grandma when they invented the fictional “death panels” in the health care bill. A provision that would have paid doctors to have discussions with patients about what sort of care they wanted when terminally ill was yanked out of the bill—“they want to kill granny!” But you don’t hear a peep about making granny and granddad work until they drop.

Friends at the Economic Policy Institute came up with numbers we should all share with the Congress members who’ll be taking up the commission’s proposals in December:

• The shortfall that’s expected after 2037 can be fixed without raising the retirement age. Social Security taxes should be raised on the highest earners, who now pay FICA only on the first $106,800 of their income.

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• People born in 1960 or later already have to wait till they’re 67 to get full benefits.

• Raising the retirement age doesn’t mean people will stay on the job, of course. It just means their benefits will be cut if they quit at what we used to think was a normal age (though much older than workers in Europe have enjoyed). For the average worker who retires at 65, raising the retirement age to 70 would cost a total of $63,573.

• Working longer is not really a choice for those with physically demanding jobs—who tend to be poorer than average. Sixty-one percent of physically demanding jobs are held by workers in the bottom 40 percent of the wage scale.

• Men in the top half of earners have increased their life expectancy at age 65 by five years since 1982. But lower-income men have seen a gain of only 1.1 years, and lower-income women have seen life expectancy decline.

The rich not only live longer—raising the retirement age would mean they get longer retirements than the less-well-off, too. There’s a reason they call us working stiffs.

The AFL-CIO’s Alliance for Retired Americans is pressuring Congresspeople to pledge not to raise the retirement age, and it’s one of the demands of the One Nation march on Washington October 2.