# Pros and cons of raising the retirement age **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 5, 2010, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587 "2010-07-05T04:21:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/21 "2010-07-06T19:53:57Z")
> [@Sateryn76](#): > > Actually, you could have easily controlled your retirement, by making different financial decisions over the past 30 years. Then, you wouldn’t be dependent on SS for retirement, and you could retire whenever the hell you wanted to. Yes. The financial decisions I made when I was 10 were really stupid. :smack: Thank you for enlightening me. Knew I shouldn’t have majored in Journalism. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/22 "2010-07-06T20:08:10Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > Yes. The financial decisions I made when I was 10 were really stupid. :smack: Thank you for enlightening me. Knew I shouldn’t have majored in Journalism. My fault - I assumed you were close to retirement, since you were so mad about it. I’m in my early 30s as well, and I am not counting on SS at all. I’m trying to structure my finances to provide what I need from my own money. You may want to do the same, because I’m pretty sure that, once we hit our 50s or so, SS as it is now will cease to exist. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/23 "2010-07-06T20:29:40Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > I hate to tell ya this, but for some of us, it’s already been raised to 67. I don’t really know how or when this happened, but imagine my surprise when I opened up my annual statement from the IRS one fine spring morning to discover that I was suddenly committed to working a few more years than I’d originally agreed to. > > I was pissed off that this happened, there was no vote, and nobody _asked_ me. Just, open the mail and poof! I’m now working two more years than I’d planned to. > > And now, I assume that TPTB will again not give a shit about the little person and I will be committed to working three more years than my original commitment. (I’ll work until I’m 65 and then you can all fuck off.) :mad: > > I don’t really care about the pros and cons; what I do care about is being in control of my own choices… So if there is going to be a change, I would like the OPTION to CONTROL my own CHOICE, thankyouverymuch. > > I know, controlling your own choices is just too much to ask in this day and age’s nanny state. It’s not the IRS, it’s the SSA. There was a vote, it happened in Congress. In 1983, as a matter of fact. If you’re just finding out about it now, you’re about 25 years too late to complain. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/24 "2010-07-06T20:32:20Z")
**Sateryn76** , I’ve done the best that I can but here’s what’s working against me: I started out in life (post-college) with a bunch of student loan debt and came from a blue collar background – my parents received pensions and retirement plans and all that stuff, so they never even thought to advise me to set up my own nest egg. Between that and trying to pay for my own car and rent and food… on a journalism major’s salary, it’s been all I could do just to get all the bills paid. 20 years out of school (I am 40 for two more weeks) and I finally own my house, have an IRA and a separate 401(k) and automatic direct deposits into a cash savings account. But I had to dig myself out of a hole for a long time. So I could never figure out, if I can barely make enough to buy groceries for the week, exactly how was I supposed to restructure my finances to provide what I need from my own money? I still don’t really make enough to be very confident about setting myself up. But no, I am not counting on SS to be there when I finally drop dead at work. I’ve never married, don’t have kids, and there is not a single relative within three generations who has anything at all that I would stand to inherit, so either I will keep working until I drop dead at work or I will be that freaky old lady buying cases of cat food at the grocery store. I have no safety net whatsoever, besides whatever little bits and kibbles I can stash away when I’m not paying the mortgage or something. I just get mad as hell when decisions are made for me and choices are removed from me without my knowledge or consent. I also cannot understand why I seem to be the only person who is incensed and outraged by this secret back room bump to age 67 retirement. I didn’t agree to that. The IRS just TOLD me what I was going to do and I have no say in the matter. That makes me stabby and filled with grrr. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/25 "2010-07-06T20:34:33Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > It’s not the IRS, it’s the SSA. > > There was a vote, it happened in Congress. In 1983, as a matter of fact. > > If you’re just finding out about it now, you’re about 25 years too late to complain. Oh, right, the SSA. They send that statement after tax time, so I always associate it with the IRS. The vote in 1983 explains why I didn’t know anything about it and didn’t agree to it: I was 14 in 1983. Freshman in high school. Not even old enough to vote about decisions being made about my own future. Foiled by the Regan/Bush era once again, dammit! :mad: ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/26 "2010-07-06T22:36:10Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > I hate to tell ya this, but for some of us, it’s already been raised to 67. I don’t really know how or when this happened, but imagine my surprise when I opened up my annual statement from the IRS one fine spring morning to discover that I was suddenly committed to working a few more years than I’d originally agreed to. > > I was pissed off that this happened, there was no vote, and nobody _asked_ me. Just, open the mail and poof! I’m now working two more years than I’d planned to. > > And now, I assume that TPTB will again not give a shit about the little person and I will be committed to working three more years than my original commitment. (I’ll work until I’m 65 and then you can all fuck off.) :mad: > > I don’t really care about the pros and cons; what I do care about is being in control of my own choices… So if there is going to be a change, I would like the OPTION to CONTROL my own CHOICE, thankyouverymuch. > > I know, controlling your own choices is just too much to ask in this day and age’s nanny state. For those born after 1960-ish, yes. To me a bigger issue is the minimum age going from 62 to 65. Full retirement going from 67 to 70 is bothersome but not as much as raising the minimum SS age. I know several people counting the days to 62 and hoping their savings last because they can’t find a job. Not sure what they are supposed to do if they need to wait another 3 years. And even though, by and large people live longer and healthier I still know several people whose bodies are already worn to a nub by age 61. So expecting them to work to 70 isn’t going to work. If you let people control their own choices, nobody could retire. That is why the gov. has to force people to spend 6.2% of gross income and their employer to match it to fund their retirement. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/27 "2010-07-06T23:05:39Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > It’s not the IRS, it’s the SSA. > > There was a vote, it happened in Congress. In 1983, as a matter of fact. > > If you’re just finding out about it now, you’re about 25 years too late to complain. Yep, they screwed us before most of those affected had the right to vote. We will just have to do the same to the following generations so that WE can have OUR payments! ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/28 "2010-07-07T03:57:00Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > For those born after 1960-ish, yes. To me a bigger issue is the minimum age going from 62 to 65. Full retirement going from 67 to 70 is bothersome but not as much as raising the minimum SS age. I know several people counting the days to 62 and hoping their savings last because they can’t find a job. Not sure what they are supposed to do if they need to wait another 3 years. And even though, by and large people live longer and healthier I still know several people whose bodies are already worn to a nub by age 61. So expecting them to work to 70 isn’t going to work. > > If you let people control their own choices, nobody could retire. That is why the gov. has to force people to spend 6.2% of gross income and their employer to match it to fund their retirement. Do you honestly believe that “nobody” is responsible enough to control their own choices, and no one would prepare for retirement? Really? That speaks volumes about your faith in the intelligence of the human race. Just do me a favor - leave me out of it. I’d be happy to get 25% of what I’ve paid in to SS today, and quit the program entirely. ---
**Author:** ![Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/22d042/32.png) [@Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/29 "2010-07-07T18:09:59Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > Explain how lowering the rate at which workers leave jobs thru retirement creates additional jobs. And then for your follow up question, explain how the same number of people and the same number of jobs equals greater unemployment. Gee, economics sure is hard! ---
**Author:** ![Iridescent\_Orb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@Iridescent\_Orb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iridescent_Orb)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 8:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/30 "2010-07-09T08:34:02Z")
Advocates of increased retirement ages often use the concept of percent of life in retirement. For example, say life expectancy is 60 years and retirement age is 55. This means that on average a person will spend 5/60 = 8.3% of their life in retirement (or 91.7% of their life “not in retirement”). If life expectancy increases to 80 years, the new retirement age would be 91.7% x 80 years = 73.3 years, which provides an average of 6.7 years of retirement. The basic idea is that the ratio of work years to retirement years remains relatively constant, and the benefits of increased life expectancy should be shared between society as a whole (by requiring individuals work longer) and by individuals themselves (by increasing their retirement years). Naturally, exactly how to cut the pie is a source of considerable debate. The above example is an admitted simplification, but hopefully it illustrates the general idea. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/31 "2010-07-09T16:33:31Z")
> [@Sateryn76](#): > > Actually, you could have easily controlled your retirement, by making different financial decisions over the past 30 years. Then, you wouldn’t be dependent on SS for retirement, and you could retire whenever the hell you wanted to. Tell that to all the people in their 50s and 60s who’ve had their financial decisions take a hit in the crotch by the stock market collapse over the last two years. Yes, most of the value has come back, but we’ve had two years of saving essentially wiped off the books. What were our alternatives? Put everything in bonds? Not only were “safe” bonds returning less than the rate of inflation, but a hell of a lot of “safe” bonds (e.g., General Motors) turned out to be less than safe. Buy gold? Cyclical swings in the price of gold make the stock market look dull. Invest in real estate? That turned out well, didn’t it? Of course, the “third leg” of the retirement stool (along with SS and our own savings) was originally designed to be our companies’ defined-benefit pension plans. Except that back in the '80s and '90s, the company pension plan turned into a defined-contribution 401K system, which tanked along with our own individual savings. With all due respect to the “make your own decisions” argument, a lot of the choices we were presented with at the time would have ALL turned out to be wrong (in the sense of coming out ahead when retirement time rolled around.) [QUOTE=Algher] Yep, they screwed us before most of those affected had the right to vote. [/QUOTE] To be precise, they screwed you before you entered the workforce. You never had the promise of retiring at 65 with full SS benefits. You only thought you did. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/32 "2010-07-09T17:33:27Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > This is only one lever that would increase the funds available for SS payout. > > It would behoove us to discuss the pro/con on the other major levers also, and try to determine the greatest benefit with the least damage, as well as the politically fallout. > > As I see it, the top three are: > [LIST] > [li]Raise the cap on earnings [/li][li]High earners paying more in. [/li][li]Low negative impact overall. They can afford it,…yes they can, really.[/li][li]Politically aware donor group affected.[\*]Raise retirement age[/li][INDENT][li]I gotta keep working? DAMN! This sucks![/li]In the absence of hard numbers on each of these, I say move a small increment on each. Raise the cap on earnings 10%, retirement age 1 year, and raise the minimum wage $1. Call it the 10-1-1 plan. I somewhat agree. I’d say no cap at all on taxing earnings. Why should there be? There’s no cap on Income Tax, in fact the opposite. But yes, there should be some mild increases in SS retirement ages. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/33 "2010-07-09T17:35:09Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > T But our generation has supported the richest group of elderly people in history - our parents - for the past 30 years or so while they’ve enjoyed 20, 30, even 40 years of fun, travel and topnotch medical care. We wouldn’t mind getting a little bit of retirement too. “fun, travel and topnotch medical care”- I think you badly over estimate what Soc Sec pays or what Medicare covers. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/34 "2010-07-09T17:39:07Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > The vote in 1983 explains why I didn’t know anything about it and didn’t agree to it: I was 14 in 1983. Freshman in high school. Not even old enough to vote about decisions being made about my own future. So then for you, there was no _change_. The change occured before you had even contributed a nickel. You might as well get angry about the original bill back in 1935. “grrr”:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![shiftless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@shiftless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shiftless)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/35 "2010-07-09T17:59:18Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > “fun, travel and topnotch medical care”- I think you badly over estimate what Soc Sec pays or what Medicare covers. I’m not talking about SS or medicare, not by themselves anyway. In spite of what AARP would have us all believe, the elderly in America are not all scrapping by on Social Security, eating cat food and living in cardboard boxes. As a group they are very well off and yet, they are also reaping the greatest returns on their Social Security “investments.” ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/36 "2010-07-09T18:06:42Z")
> [@shiftless](#): > > I’m not talking about SS or medicare, not by themselves anyway. In spite of what AARP would have us all believe, the elderly in America are not all scrapping by on Social Security, eating cat food and living in cardboard boxes. As a group they are very well off and yet, they are also reaping the greatest returns on their Social Security “investments.” “As a group” maybe, but a good number are scraping by with nothing but SocSec, which is hard to do. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/37 "2010-07-09T18:58:34Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > So then for you, there was no _change_. The change occured before you had even contributed a nickel. You might as well get angry about the original bill back in 1935. “grrr”:rolleyes: More like, I’m angry that this information never found its way to me until I was well into my 30s. Prior to that, all information I’d seen, heard, read, or been told indicated that 65 was retirement age and not until I’d been working a good 15 years did I finally learn that, in fact, there is another retirement age that takes effect eventually, but nobody ever talks about it. You have to read that SSA statement to catch it. Turn on CNN: you won’t hear a single talking head mention that the retirement age has already been raised once. Everyone (on TV) acts like we’re talking about jumping from 65 straight to 70. I’ve been yelling at the TV in frustration because I keep waiting for someone to point this out. I bet there’s a _bunch_ of people out there my age and younger who don’t read their SSA statements every year and have _no idea_ they have to work two more years than their parents did. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/38 "2010-07-09T19:30:33Z")
> [@Dogzilla](#): > > More like, I’m angry that this information never found its way to me until I was well into my 30s. Prior to that, all information I’d seen, heard, read, or been told indicated that 65 was retirement age and not until I’d been working a good 15 years did I finally learn that, in fact, there is another retirement age that takes effect eventually, but nobody ever talks about it. You have to read that SSA statement to catch it. Turn on CNN: you won’t hear a single talking head mention that the retirement age has already been raised once. Everyone (on TV) acts like we’re talking about jumping from 65 straight to 70. I’ve been yelling at the TV in frustration because I keep waiting for someone to point this out. I bet there’s a _bunch_ of people out there my age and younger who don’t read their SSA statements every year and have _no idea_ they have to work two more years than their parents did. And you’re a journalism major? I was born in 1951. You are probably going to live longer than I will, and be healthier, so I’m not too impressed by your complaining about retirement age. You’ll also find that your SSA payments depends on your contributions, until you hit the cap. You might well discover that you don’t get enough to retire on even when you hit the proper age. BTW, if you study the stuff you get from the gummint, you’ll see you get less if you retire early and more if you put it off. But you can retire anytime you have enough money, even if you don’t start your SSA benefits. That implies saving something, which is a good idea no matter what the retirement age is. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/39 "2010-07-09T19:34:41Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Lower productivity - instead of having people in their 60s retiring and letting 20 year old take their jobs, they stay on. The result is older people who have worse health and higher wages are employed while younger workers who have more physical stamina, lower health/disability costs and more flexibility remain unemployed. This could also cause societal problems (mass youth unemployment usually causes problems) As has been mentioned, physical stamina isn’t much of a part of the job I have. Plus, with my experience and the library of software I have accumulated, I can program twice as fast as someone twenty years younger than me. My health may not be quite as good, but on the other hand I don’t have to take time off for sick kids. > [@](#): > > Desperately poor middle aged people - tons of people find after being kicked out, laid off or fired in their 50s that it becomes extremely hard to find another job. I know several unemployed people in their 50s hoping their savings last until they are 62 and start collecting SS because they can’t find anything. If you raise the minimum age to 65 and full age to 70 you will have tons of people who find themselves involuntarily unemployed through most of their 50s and 60s. What happens to them? When employment comes back, raising the retirement age might be good for this group. Lots of companies don’t want to hire older people because they feel they will not stay long enough to pay back the training investment. With a higher retirement age, this is less of an issue. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587/40 "2010-07-09T19:36:01Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > And you’re a journalism major? What’s that supposed to imply, that because I studied journalism for a minute back in the 1980s, I’m supposed to know everything about everything, including SSA policy changes like raising the retirement age? Journalism major doesn’t even mean I’ve ever worked as a reporter, nor does it mean that all journalism majors are up to speed on any possible topic. There’s a million different subjects one could study and report on and be knowledgeable about; I can’t possibly know about it all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pros-and-cons-of-raising-the-retirement-age/545587.md?page=3)