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Laboring Longer a Growing Trend For Americans
AxSpark writes "More and more Americans have the tendency to work after retirement and this number is growing day by day. Last year this number was 6 million people of 65 and over working. The reason for that is quite evident: pensions are not enough for sufficient living."
It could be that a lot of people are still healthy enough to continue working after age 65... and some people actually want to!
I plan on working past retirement, but not doing what the pointy haired boss wants, but what I want. Just because I retire does not mean I have to sit at home, or be on a permanent vacation.
"My immediate reaction is "WTF? What kind of moron doesn't make things 64-bit safe to begin with?" Linus
If only there were some sort of government solution that would guarantee retirement income for everyone. That would fix everything.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
No problem, just privatize social security! We can trust GOP lobbyists to put our money in the next Enron and secure our financial future, right?! In all seriousness, "people" are too dumb to plan for retirement on their own. That, and a combination of being stretched too thin financially. That extra $5/week from lower taxes goes into the gas tank, not the 401k. Before everyone gets all uppity about "omg people just need to be responsible, not MY PROBLEM that they cant plan for retirement!" you are entirely correct - its not your fault that most people (whom have never been properly educated on the subject nor had such education/information easily accessible to them) are unable to plan for retirement. Its not their fault either.
The reason for that is quite evident: pensions are not enough for sufficient living.
Or: expenses are not enough under control for sufficient living. We all spend too much money on frivolous nonsense during spring and summer of life, but we don't have to.
(Not blaming anyone personally, I'm the first to realise I might have a big problem if all the drinking and smoking just doesn't kill me in time.)
Accoring to http://perotcharts.com/challenges/ this is only the beginning
If only you got a pension for reading Slashdot. I could retire now.
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
that people are living longer? (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html)
Sure, some people are going to keep working because they need the money, but that's hardly proof of the fundamental reason for the trend. I think it's much more likely that it's related to the fact that people are living longer and healthier, and a lot of people (most?) don't want to just lie around the house.
In the "old days", 65 was one foot in the grave. These days, there are a lot more healthy 65 year olds that aren't content to believe that life is over and you might as well start waiting to die.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I agree. Like what if I paid into it the entire time I was working, and the government could use my money while I worked to invest it in projects that would then make my life easier once I retired?
That would probably take some kind of mathematical genius to figure out, and even then it would depend on multiple realities.
Neither are hobbies.
Just sayin'.
You living for 10 to 15 years after your retirement. Now the average age is rising thanks to medical science and the quality of your life has improved so you live longer, and will require more money.
Does average age have to do anything with it?
I can imagine that many pension plans are about letting people live for 10 years. From 65 to 75. Now people get older and suddenly need to have money for 20 years.
That together with the fact that health wise, those are the most expensive years. People paying a LOT of money for 1 or 2 more years. My great-aunt always though it was stupid to spend so much money on the elderly and that money should be given to healthy people.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
If you didn't earn enough money to support yourself in the lifestyle you want, you have no right to that lifestyle. I'm sick of the entitlement attitude that permeates this society. The day that the American Dream went from a dream of liberty, to a house, 2 cars, middle class family, dog, cat, etc. was the day that this country sold itself out to the highest bidder. If Ben Franklin were alive, he'd probably add a corollary to his infamous quip about security: they that lust after wealth more than liberty deserve neither; it was from that lust for economic equality, unearned money and sense of entitlement that most of the horrors of the 20th century were born.
Ask the oldies why they're working, they cannot afford the medical insurance on their own. My neighbor recently turned 80, his health insurance is $1200/month. Ask around, you'll find all the crusties doing crap jobs are doing it purely for medical coverage. Good job we're the richest country in the world, imagine how bad our system would be if weren't the most powerful nation on earth.
it seemed logical to me that if we as a race are living longer, we would want/need to work longer and the retirement age would increase in accordance. But this has already been discussed as a national issue here in the UK and now I'm older I've always been left scratching my head because it seemed so obvious/natural back then. I can't see how as a society if we live to 100, we could still retire at 60/65 and expect the state to give us cash for another 35 years as opposed to say 30 years ago people were living fewer years past the retirement age and so required less money.
Jonathanjk.com
According to the article the lack of pensions is not a problem, it is people not saving or thoses that don't feel like retiring.
You had one example of people worring about thier pension and they did not want to go into thier 1.3 million dollar savings.
You had more examples of people who were worried about the lack of money they are receiving from Social Security; and right they should be at an annualized real rate of return of 1.2% the person would of been far better off putting that 14% of her salary in Treasury bills and made an easy 3%
Besides who has a pension any more? Unless you have an IT job in a company that is old and has alot of factory style workers you will not see a pension.
The last 60 years have been an anomaly in that large swaths of the population have been even able to take retirement. A favorable social condition brought about by ever expanding resources and population that allowed for a large worker to retiree ratio. Unfortunately, the graying populations of Western economies and stagnant resource production is going to see the return of many conditions now thought extinct.
Damn senior citizens taking away jobs from decent working age Americans!
Back in the day we just shipped them to the old folk's home and they liked it!
(j/k)
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
As this is a timothy post, I only bothered reading the title. We're expecting our second child in January, and my wife is NOT going to like this news!
As people stay healthier longer, people SHOULD continue to work. We shouldn't conceptualize the stages of human life in terms of years; Instead, we should conceptualize it in terms of percentages of expected life. Granted, the first 18 or so years are pretty much set in stone, but after that, we have a certain percentage of life available for each occupied stage. Looking only at labor, first there is education. Then, there is the career ramp-up. Then we have career maintenance -- perhaps a career switch (using skills from career #1 in career #2 . . . or not). Finally, we wind our careers down. A percentage of our healthy adult lives should be dedicated to each of these, with a percentage left for active retirement. There's nothing wrong with the actual number of years within each stage to increase in proportion to the amount of time we have to live well. This is the biggest benefit of progress in health and life expectancy.
pensions are not enough for sufficient living."
Not everyone can have a house. Not everyone can have a car. Not everyone can live close to all the cool stuff in a city. That definition of "sufficient" is clearly debatable.
Certainly sufficient for survival is not what was meant. Sufficient for a comfortable existence relative to history? I don't think that is what is meant either. I think sufficient in this case means "as good or better than everyone else."
This insufferable materialism is killing us by inches. There's not a lot of inertia behind avoiding it either. I've never seen so many people fall so willingly into slavery.
Baby Boomers are retiring in large numbers, many of them in good health with longer life expectancies. Many Baby Boomers spent their lives physically active and with a real work ethic, starting their own businesses in many cases. Some invested well; others didn't. The recent changes in the economy mean some retirees' pensions and investments aren't going as far as they did, though presumably others' investments are doing well. So the fact that more people are working past retirement doesn't mean just one cause. Some are bored and want something to do, some need more income to last longer retirements, some need more money to make up for poor investments, etc.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
At retirement time, in Italy, 90% of people live on state pension. Let me tell you what happens.
State pension works by having current workers pay pension of retired people. In the golden years (70,80,90) we had people working and an apparent "extra" money into the pension "funds". Politicians thought to use the extra money to send the retiring workers early to pension.
Not only, but it was "normal" to go to pension with 90% of the last monthly income
The problem is that workforce is now declining, taxes are increasing and we currently pay pension to people that are just lucky to have retired early with a hefty pension (apparently nobody is willing to know how much a worker has PAID into the pension scheme and refund just that, plus interest).
I know I will have to work as long as I can, I am just upset that jurnalists and politicians brush this issue under the carpet leaving for when it will be too late
We do have private pension scheme but they are a money drain (basically another way to give luxury cars to some fund manager) they give no guarantee on the capital (as far as I know) and after the Parmalat scandal there is even less trust on any private fund manager institution (Parmalat is not a fund manager, but if you "invested" on their bonds you have lost the money)
So you're talking about investing in Treasury securities?
I grew up in Fort Lauderdale. As you may know, South Florida is America's retirement home. Well it used to be.
It used to be where the rich came to retire. Now they're struggling the same as my parents. Who, after raising 3 kids and turning now 67, have to work. They still haven't even payed of their house. Their social security checks are decent, as is my dad's pension. They just can't afford to live on it.
Besides that, not everyone gets a pension.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I know whan my dad retired he was bored out of his mind since he loved the job he did. If he could have stayed on working I know he would have done. Plus just because you hit 65 doesn't mean you suddenly arn't interested in earning money. I don't see working beyond 65 as a problem personally unless the person is unwell or unfit to continue in the job.
And of course , if you're a COBOL coder you'll probably still be in demand until the day you go face down in your keyboard (or should that be punched card stack?)
They'd invest it in some awesome way, like giving your money to China to plan for your future of not having to be a slave to the Chinese when they call in the debt!
Hooray for big government! Who's with me!?
Perhaps a major driver is a lack of savings (indeed, "negative" household savings in many cases)...
My parent's generation defined retirement as the time where you are able to stop working.
My generation seems to be defining retirement as transitioning from "having to work" to "wanting to work".
I have an uncle who could stop working, if he wanted to. He actually tried - he sold his business and took a year off, vacationed a bunch, spent some money..etc. He was so bored at the end of the year, that he bought another business and continued to work.
As long as you have time for a bit of vacation and leisure activities, why not continue to work if you are able?
-ted
the story seems to suggest we are all suffering because we don't get to retire at 65
i think that i would be bored out of my skull watching daytime tv, and would rather get a job
furthermore, working past traditional retirement is an indication not so much of an ailing economy as people living longer AND healthier lives
i myself don't think i'll ever retire. what is retirement? a chance to accelerate your cognitive decline? what is the point of retirement?
the mandatory retirement at 65 is not so much a disappearing luxury as it is a fossil of an earlier economic age, when most people worked manual labor. if i worked manual labor, indeed, retirement at 65 seems too late!
however, for those of us whose work is mostly cognitive in a modern economy, retirement is a nonissue
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I have never been offered a pension. I have no sympathy for those who do have them.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
"The reason for that is quite evident: pensions are not enough for sufficient living."
People are also working 40% or more of their lives to support the political class.
It was born in the depression, as the government's way to push older workers out of the job market, to make room for younger (and more taxable) ones. Prior to Social Security, you worked until you died, pretty much.
For many, it's still that way - when you stop working, you start dying. I have no plans of letting that happen to me!
Criminy with the fundie VP candidate's part Eskimo daughter showing up preggers and landfall of a cat 3 hurricane yesterday this is the best slashdot could come up with?
People have been working later ever since medicine has figured out a way to increase people's average lifespan.
The reason for that is quite evident: pensions are not enough for sufficient living."
Please define "sufficient living"
and pension as well. Of all the companies I've worked for over the last twenty years only one has a pension.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
I laugh when people tell me about retirement. Some in America believe that it is their right to retire. If you have enough financial stability to retire in the US by the age 65 you're lucky. My great grandfather worked well into his 80's despite a thirty some year job w/ a local bus company. With Social Security payments falling woefully behind inflation, there is no support structure in place from the government for retirees. Basically save your chips because if you don't have $$ when you hit 60 you're working till you're dead.
The boomers had plenty of kids. My parents were boomers, and I've found there is no lack of people around my age. The population growth in the United States is still positive, in case you haven't noticed. No, there isn't a perfect distribution among age groups but where do you get this idea that baby boomers didn't have any children? Do you see a massive gap in our population? I sure don't.
RTFA please. Especially before writing the summary. Most of the anecdotes from TFA reflect instances where people got sick of being retired, not where they were in dire straits because of pensions that couldn't keep up.
In the instance of the retired travel agent that needed to continue working to make ends meet, please note her own quote:
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
Western Europe, Russia, Japan will be going into population decline. America is holding steady.
But holding steady isn't good enough if you want to have some huge nanny state (universal health care, Social Security, etc.)
Ironically, the people who support all those expensive long-term program are the ones having the fewest amount of babies.
As to retirement, less young folks mean you'll have to work longer. Unless there is a major leap in productivity.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
health care, chained to desk till 65, after that consultant, set own rates. pensions are clearly not enough to cover health care. when 65 get medicare.
A hand up and a foot on every chest...
It has been said that inflation consumes debt.
This is only one side of the coin. Inflation also consumes savings by diminishing their future purchasing power. So it's probably more true that inflation uses savings to pay debt.
That being said, SOME Americans may be working longer because they want to, but most are finding it to be necessary.
The loss of purchasing power of the dollar can be directly linked as the cause of this trend.
The ONLY reasons that the average American family's quality of life hasn't drastically diminished are:
1.) Most families have 2 sources of income.
2.) Most families are funding their quality of life with debt.
The expansion of the fiat money base, and continued globalization will absolutely require that the American quality of life diminish.....unless of course we work harder, longer hours, or later in life. There will come a point where it is no longer possible to do either.
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the bleeding must be stopped before any healing can begin. jailing a couple of corepirate nazi hired goons would send a clear message to the rest of the world from US. any truthful look at the 'scorecard' would reveal that we are a socie
If people are living longer, well then they are probably going to need to work longer. Basically the simple economic way to look at retirement is that for the first part of your life, you spend less than 100% of what you make. That is saved for later. Then, when you retire, you stop making anything and start spending out that money you've built up.
All well and good, however the amount you save need to be balanced against how long you are going to retire for. If you live to 66, and work to 65, well then you don't need much savings. Saving 1% per year would probably do just fine. However if you live to 120 and work to 65, well you are going to need some serious savings. You might need to save damn near half your income.
Of course we don't know when we are going to die. However what we do know is that we are likely to live longer. So, the choice is save more or work longer. Well, many probably feel that work longer is a good option. As you said, many people don't just want to lie around the house. So instead you work for a longer period of time.
As life expectancy extends, this is what we as a society will have to deal with. We can either work for longer, or save more when we do work. Can't really have it any other way. You can't have the same retirement for 50 years as you can for 20 saving the same amount of money.
I personally don't see either as a bad option. I've no problem with people who want to live very thrifty lives so that they can stop working at a rather young age. Nor do I think it is bad for people who want to spend more and work for a longer period of time. Hell, maybe some people want to do both.
Regardless, it is a simple fact that as people live longer, they are going to have to deal with retirement differently. That many choose to work longer doesn't surprise me. Hell we have professors that work well in to retirement. These people don't need to work, if you've held a university job for a number of years you get a nice retirement plan. However, they like to work, and the university will allow you to work half time or less once you are retired. We have a number who do just that, some right until death. We had one professor die not long ago. Great guy, and in quite good health. Regularly played sports and such. Not sure his exact age, but over 70. However, one night his heart had simply had enough and stopped in his sleep. He worked his whole life, because he wanted to, not because he had to.
just so that some other people don't need to work at all.
It was originally conceived as a fund where you'd pay in to as you worked, and your funds would be used to pay for your retirement. Something like an insurance package, which is no surprise as it is properly called Old Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance. Well, this worked quite well and indeed Social Security was turning a profit. You'd think that might be reinvested to allow for higher payouts to people as they retired but then the US government is just as shortsighted as Italy's. Instead, the fund as been borrowed against by the government for other uses, and payins haven't kept up with spending. So now we have a sort of pyramid scheme where the current workers pay for the current retirees. The fund is slowly getting expended, and eventually it'll run out and they'll either have to raise taxes a lot, or reduce benefits to about 75% of what has been promised.
Thus it is no surprise that there is a good deal of interest in America in having a private retirement plan, either one provided through your employer, your own personal one, or perhaps both. This is also where the distrust for government managed plans you see from many Americans comes from.
So don't feel too bad or surprised that your government has mismanaged your pension as well, it seems to just be something governments are good at doing.
You insensitive clod!
I don't know about your field, but nobody *I* know gets offered a pension. I think that perk is mostly long gone, except for government workers.
401k/457/etc... start early, be serious, be consistent...
Define not enough? For what lifestyle? Maybe it's not enough because people don't save until later in life. Why would they? Tey get punished by our tax system for saving.
But really, if it isn't enough, maybe people need to re-examine their lifestyle choices until it is enough. Or maybe people in the US just find a certain kind of fulfillment is working that they don't find in sitting on their asses.
Derek Greene
What is this strange thing of which you speak? "Penn-shun"??? Never heard of such a thing.
This stuff is a real issue, I do not understand how some people think this country does not need universal health care, I guess they think they will live healthy forever.
It's only an issue because we insist on keeping old people alive. They're old; let 'em die.
(Disclosure: I plan on killing myself as soon as I find myself unable to get hard without taking a pill.)
I write sci-fi for metalheads
"pensions are not enough for sufficient living."
Here, let me clue you in to the bigger reason.
Pension? What the fuck is a "pension"?
Oh, the fucking irony that my captcha word was "deficit"
When the German social-system was founded (by Bismarck), in 1889 the pension-system was introduced.
Asked at what age people should be able to get the pension, Bismarck decided on the age of 65.
At that time, the average lifespan of a citizen in Germany was 48 years.
Based on that, we'd have to set the retirement-age close to 100 years nowadays...
I know that I will probably have to work 'till I drop.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
Is that people don't want to put a dollar value on life. Not saying it is an easy thing to do, but it is something that needs to be done. As medical science gets better, we are getting real good at curing or treating all the simple things that kill people. However, what that also can mean is that when people hit really old age, they just start falling apart. Well, there are things that can be done to help that, a little bit, but they often are very expensive. So you can spend a ton of money prolonging a life for a little while, and with a fairly low quality of life while it happens.
Well, when we demand that everyone gets these sort of treatments, and the cost be damned, it shouldn't be surprising that healthcare costs rise. If you are going to have a couple million spent on you in your last year or two of life, that money is going to need to come from somewhere, because you sure aren't going to pay it back.
So we really do need to start thinking about what is and is not worth treating in old age. It may seem harsh to talk economics, but I'd say it is far worse not to. Someone has to pay. We either end up having to spend a ton on healthcare (and by extension have a whole lot of our population employed doing nothing but caring for those people) or having to cut back on healthcare in other areas.
If it comes down to spending a million dollars to let an elderly person in extremely poor health live another 6 months or spending a million dollars to save a young kid who's been severely injured, but should be able to live a full and productive life, well I have to side with the kid every time. To me it makes sense not just economically, but ethically as well.
The "evident" reason people aren't retiring is NOT that "pensions are not enough for sufficient living"...!
The REAL reason is that those Baby Boomers aren't willing to reduce their standard of extravagance... er, I mean, living.
A single friend of mine was just offered retirement 10 years early. He'll probably keep working because he'd rather have a new car and a house in the suburbs. Downsizing is just is too much sacrifice...
I've been retired (real early) since 2000 because I am willing to stay out of debt, budget my income, move where I could live best, only concentrate on things I really enjoyed, and take advantage of what the government offered.
The quality of your life isn't based on how much you owe... I mean, own.
Hey these days they have *software* terminals going into the mainframe, running on their windows boxes that have roughly 200x the processing power and storage of said mainframe (you have to appreciate the irony)
Punch cards are history.
In an April survey conducted for AARP, 27 percent of workers age 45 and over, and 32 percent of those 55-64 said they had pushed back their planned retirement date because of the economic downturn. The telephone poll by Woelfel Research interviewed 1,002 respondents and carried a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
One data point? Meh, I'm not conviced. A few anecdotes make good reading but one isolated survey does not establish a trend. If they want to claim more people are deferring retirement due to financial need, they need to provide historical data to compare this too.
For all we know, the change can all be chalked up to the mid- to late-60's demographic enjoying better health and growing as a percentage of the total population.
This is why retirement ages should be mandatory. If a significant proportion of voters were retirees, and Congress knew that they had to retire and live on a pension, they would vote in policies that maintain a stable system for older people because everybody would eventually become members of it.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
The USA has 10 Trillion dollars in off-balance-sheet liabilities. Because of the way Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are funded, when people in my age group (I'm 60) really start retiring, it's going to be expensive. There is no money there. If a private company ran it's finances the way the government does, somebody would go to prison.
Ok, ask anyone if they expect to collect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; everyone says yes, they paid, they're entitled. However, 80% of the people drawing these benefits will be capable of paying their own expenses. They are not poor. I am all for helping the economically disadvantaged, but why should the government steal money from productive workers and re-distribute it to people who are not needy?
I suspect that sometime in the next eight years, the money will be purposely inflated (making the benefits debt less expensive to pay out), taxes will rise dramatically, the retirement age will be pushed close to age 70, and finally, after all fails, the government will establish a means test, so that only the most desparate will be able to go to the front of the line for benefits.
Privatization of benefits actually worked for Chile. It could work for us, but it is almost too late.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
1/3 of people between age 50 and 65 experience a health problem that prevents them from working for a while or permenantly. Trying to stay in slashdot-related careers after age 50 is another roadblock.
I think a good plan is to trying become financially independent by your 50s and hope for the best.
My father retired 13 years ago at 55. That was his plan. He didn't get married till he was 30 and I wasn't born until he was forty. I was an only child and my mother worked until I was born. For that several years they used her paycheck to pay off the house (in less than 5 years), and then started saving. Back when he first started work he read a pension report that said in the 1960's, someone who retired at 62 drew a pension on average for 18 months before they croaked. We always bought new cars, paid for in cash, and drove them for 150k miles or 10 years. And we bought mid-priced Chevy's, nothing fancy. We always went on a vacation in the summer, but usually drove and stayed in comfort inns or holiday ins, never the fancy stuff. (exception was when I went to live in and study in Germany for a year. It was the once in a life time that we were going to be over there and we dropped close to $15k in 2 months of traveling...back when the dollar was worth a little more than Euro).
He did spend 30 years working for the same company and did well. But I remember having the sit down on family finances right after he retired (I was 16 at the time). Things lined up nicely, his pensions just about covered what it cost for us to live back then and he was still banking investment money.
He spent the first couple years out of retirement taking care of my mother as she fought a loosing battle with Cancer, then it was taking care of his mother for the last couple years of her life and eventual loosing battle with cancer. Since then we took over the family farms and they are his retirement project. He's spent $500k on capital improvements (leveling the land, putting in irrigation, putting up grain storage), bought a tractor and we've gone back into raising about 15 acres of watermelons and selling them to various outlets. So he's still working even at 68. But if he didn't have the farms to play with, I'm not sure what he would do.
Point is, he budgeted, and didn't live a fancy life. Between the farms and his IRA portfolio, he is still putting almost as much money away as he did when he worked. (Farms are an excellent tax shelter in this company.) He lived within his means with a goal. There are reasons despite making decent money for my age, I still drive a Chevy and have putting $2k into my Roth IRA since I was 21.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I also feel that the concept of family unity is also partially to blame. In present years, retiring parents are on their own and have to take care of themselves. Back when the baby boomers were coming up, families stuck together more. When the older members became retirement ready then lived with, or at least very near to, their children and helped out with expenses, care, and other things. Not too mention people seemed to be more rooted in their community during earlier times. With that came extended family, and additional "private sector" resources where people in the community stepped up to help each other out. We don't see too much of that today and the only family being relied on now is good ol' Uncle Sam.
my grandad died last year aged 95. that's 30 years retirement from his job as a plumber. he left £90,000 in his bank for relatives and that's after paying for his own funeral. how he did it, im not quite sure, but to say he was careful with his money whilst alive would be an understatement. my dad retires next year, at 65. he was going to have a nice BOC pension but his department got bought by an american company in the early 90s so it isnt so cushy any more. he's benefitted from the uk housing market though in the late 80s and the house is worth a lot more than it was bought for. unless im clever with my money and the work i do, i expect ill retire aged 70 in the uk or aged 55 on some tropical island, and live poor but content. ive not figured out which one is better or how likely it is that i can invest enough money in the right things yet
Unless I win the lottery or something, I intend to keep working until I die.
I'm not even going to bother with retirement. Yeah, I'll stop working if I strike it filthy rich, but that's it.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
All of these arguments can be done away with for the simple statement that people need to education themselves better about the nature of our current financial system.
I could assault you all with lengthy degrees of information about fiat money and fractional reserve banking, but I'll spare you as that information is available for those who look.
The simple truth is, that while inflation consumes debt, it also consumes savings. The average person, not understanding the system well enough, doesn't realize that while the "dollar amount" of their savings has doubled over the last 20 years, the actual purchasing power of that money has halved. The net result is that their money has NO additional purchasing power.
So if you consider someone that makes X dollars a year, and is going to work for 40 years and be retired for 20 years, that person would need to put away 1/2 of their yearly salary in order to live their accustomed lifestyle for the 20 years that they are retired.
What complicates matters is that in a fiat system, money is created out of nothing, so when the prime interest rate is dropped and people start speculating and investing this has the effect of increasing the money supply causing inflation.
The problem is further complicated by the government, which borrows quite heavily from the "Central Bank" as well. While this money created out of nothing, if spent immediately has the purchasing power of the present time, it causes the purchasing power of future money to drop even farther and faster.
Meanwhile this "borrowed" money is used to bailout banks and institutions which have been engaged in risky lending practices for years, so their becomes no real accountability on the part of the bank.
Until we return some fiscal responsibility to our government, both in their regular budgeting habits, and their bailout practices, it would be foolish to expect anything but a decline in the purchasing power of the dollar.
And since wages almost NEVER keep up with the decline in value of the money paying them, that means longer hours at work while you're young, and working later into life.
It only serves to hide the true cause when you rant about people being lazy and irresponsible.
Indeed! Retirement is not all it's cracked up to be. I should know, I have a disability retirement. I would be bored out of my skull watching TV all day or doing the typical "retirement" activities. Instead, a retired professor and I are writing a book just to keep our minds active. Whoever coined the term "golden years" doesn't know what he is talking about.
As Walmart continues to expand, so must they hire more Greeters to work the entrances...
I have news for you buddy, keeping an active mind and body IS one of the keys to staying healthy. To use an old adage "Use is or lose it". Also, there are a lot of retired people out there that can't afford to travel like you suggest, working is their solution to the situation. Sitting at home doing next to nothing is a certain recipe for the onset of poor health.
What this story fails to address is how the baby boomers generation has proven itself to be the greediest of all American generations. A generation for which everything revolves around them, for which there is no such thing as too much money, and a generation that doesn't accept aging and spends enormous amounts of money to defy it. Unfortunately this is reflected in our countries mounting debt and wasteful spending, created by a baby boomer government.
But back to the main issue, its great baby boomers don't want to retire, and hold onto their employment positions; but at what expense? A growing problem across the country is educated, qualified, young people belonging to generation X & Y are having difficulties finding gainful employment, as those positions are being held by the previous generation unwilling to retire.
Without new fresh talent many US sectors are beginning to stagnant, trying to work in a new global economy with old perspectives. Ultimately this leads to problems with younger generations not being given the opportunity to gain experience, learn transferred knowledge, and lead. Without this transfer of ownership, our country may be destined to failure due to leaders consisting of largely inexperienced, new to the workforce, middle-aged adults.
OLDER PEOPLE NEED TO RETIRE, SO THE AMERICAN TORCH MAY BE PASSED ON!
How can you expect me to invest my own money for my own retirement?
I gotta have a sweet ride, a big-ass brand new house, an iPhone with extended data plan, an iPod with all the accessories, 100 high-def cable channels, XBOX/PS3, bottled water and my daily Starbucks otherwise life is not worth living.
Plus my kids need their own laptops, phones, car (take the bus to school? Are you serious?) and clothes from Abercrombie and Hot Topic or else they'll be traumatized outcasts.
Are you saying you have been working for Swansea University for free? Surely as an Research Assistant with a PhD you achieve an income from there too?
People are relying on the government to support them rather than saving for their own retirement (planning ahead). American consumers live in the 'here and now', as evidence by the impulse buying and ridiculous marketing we are seeing. Now we see the long term affect: people can't retire because they aren't prepared to retire.
It isn't anyone else's job to take care of you. It is your job. Be prepared.
Looking at your 401k and screaming about how life is unfair because you cannot do whatever you want, and live the perfect, uber-fullfilling life that Madison avenue told you was yours with the right investments, hair products and big ticket purchases. You think life is supposed to be fair? Wake the fuck up, and pay attention in biology class; nothing is fair about the world. It's juvenile to pretend that life is something that it isn't. It's a downright throwback to the sort of temper tantrums that one expects of a toddler, to demand that other people sacrifice what they have, so that you can have what you want, not what you need.
Healthcare eating at your 401k, and making you have to go back to work? Guess what, 200 years ago, you'd probably be losing years off your life instead of off of your 401k because there woudl be no medical services for you to buy that could take care of old age ailments. I swear, the elderly who complain about healthcare, as though it's the right to have cheap healthcare and luxury on their savings remind me of teenagers who say "what do you mean I have to choose between paying rent and buying video games?"
Wise men once said of the retiree, "idle hands are the devil's workshop." Few cliches come within even a mile of the haunting accuracy of that statement as it applies to most retirees.
Yes, shortage of money certainly is one reason.
However, there's a second one I see fairly often, too: With health care and life expectancy being what they are, people not only live longer, they live "well" longer, too. Lots of "old" people (60-70) simply don't feel as if they're "too old". Lots of them also fear being, essentially, unemployed. At that age, a lot of your friends and relatives are already dead, or in retirement homes, or have alzheimer, cancer, whatever. Work is a place of social life, too. And social life is very important for old people, because being lonely is one of their main problems.
From what I see, a lot of "retired" people pick up part-time jobs in something they like, in order to meet people and to continue being an active part of society. Sometimes even in something they don't especially like, because the other two reasons beat that.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Not all baby boomers are spendthrifts.
The problem is wages----and their savings---- are not keeping up with inflation, so everything costs more, frivolous or not.
It'd be better to have a government-run pension plan that everyone pays into (than a private system) to help the system itself adapt to the changing workforce.
So they can spend it something else? No thank you. I have always relied on my own private self administered pension from day one. If I quite, I roll it over into it. It now generates 1/2 my gross income and tax sheltered. The income is about my monthly burn rate and I am still working at 50. If I work beyond 55, it will be because I want to.
And I haven't even factored in at 60 I can get a government pension. Trouble is, in Canada they claw it back. Second, just try to live on social security (or in Canada, CPP)? I dare you to try...as it is a pretty meager existence for sure. In fact, I am not sure if it will pay my property taxes and utilities forget about food.
The real problem is many don't save adequately for retirement. And those that want the government to do it haven''t saved or contributed. Tough for you.
Second issue, and I am fighting with this now, I want a 4 day work week! At 55 it would be nice to do 3. I have saved, cracked the hump hard for 30+ years and I want to now scale it back to 4 days. Try getting that in a poor economic environment.
People tend to do what you incite them to do. Have we incited people to stay married and raise a family? Or have we dis-incited that by making it too expensive?
When I was starting college I thought I wanted to get married and have kids. But, like the slashdot stereotype, I was a bit scrawny, akward, and shy, and as such the women basically ignored me.
Well, I grew out of that. But now that I make enough money to support a family and am sufficiently sociable to obtain one, I have grown accustomed to my childless lifestyle. Further, the economic instability and poor returns on my recent investments have left me thinking that a child might be too great a financial risk to my ability to provide for myself when I am too old to work.
So, I have some pretty strong dis-incentives to have kids. Should I nobly sacrifice my retirement just to raise a kid I don't want who will probably find me financially dependent upon him before I die, eventually leaving him even worse off than I am now? It just doesn't make sense.
but it is a reality for a while in the rest of the world.
welcome americans, back to earth.
Read radical news here
...That's how far the Republicans have fallen.
seems the gop has switched from fiscal conservatism (@ least on the spending side) & the clinton dems cut the deficit...
so u know how the media color-code gop states red & dems blue? i remember when it was the reverse...mebbe they know something;-)
Given all the talk that I hear on this thread about people having a "right" to first-world food, shelter and medical care, I wonder how many of these people would be willing to pay taxes to help the people in Asia and Africa who have none of this? I mean, if it is a human right, then they deserve it also, right? And if you are willing to have me pay for yours, why shouldn't you be willing to pay for theirs?
----- There are two kinds of people in this world, my friend; those with loaded guns, and those who dig.
What you said there was true, but I disagree that the rest of your points are the main causes.
The issue isn't that pensions aren't enough, it's that people aren't SAVING enough. Yes, SAVING! Until the new deal and great society programs came along, people used to actually take personal responsibility for their actions, and they used to save money. Now they just spend, go way into debt, and expect the government to bail them out in the long run through social security or some other mechanism. Of course, the government is doing the same thing as the people, and it's too far in debt to even help itself.
Over the last few years the personal savings rate in this country has actually been negative. I think as recently as the 1980s it was still 10% of income, though even that was lower than it should be. Ever since the 1990's though, we've been in a grip of a soccer-mom, suburban, keep up with the Jones and please supersize my TV, SUV, and my house trend in which saving money is way out of fashion. Living off the plastic is the new "in", and now people are feeling the pinch.
And that's why no one has any money for retirement anymore (and is incidentally the reason people are having trouble in this economic downturn, and every economic downturn: they weren't prepared). I had a coworker who was a 50 year old contract programmer (a very good one), and he made well over 100000 a year and was a fairly typical wealthy baby-boomer. Only problem is, he spends well over 100000 a year too. He ALWAYS had the latest gaming systems, the nicest new MP3 player and Bose headphones, multiple BMWs and Audis, and a brand new computer system with four monitors, etc, to say nothing of his laptops. He purchased most of that in the year I knew him, which gives you an idea of how much spending he was doing. We got to talking one day after we found out the company stock had gone up yet again, and he floored me by saying, "You know, I ought to get around to learning a little about investing and maybe buying some stock one of these days."
Ummm, DUH!!! You should have been investing for the last 30 years! Now it's too late for him, even if he does actually get around to it, because there aren't enough years left to capture most of the benefits of compound interest. I'm only 24 and even I have stocks and mutual funds, because I'm counting on myself, not the government, to maintain my standard of living during retirement. And that's going to be a big shock to him when he gets there, because there's no way now he can save enough to maintain his standard of living during retirement. He's addicted to his toys, addicted to not telling himself no, and that's the problem with him and the rest of America. Not working at age 65 is not an inalienable right... it's rather a gift that you buy for yourself. And if you don't start saving now you will find, like the rest of these people, that you can't afford to buy it when the time comes.
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
old mainframe joke...
Who still gets a pension?
Everyone I know has to save on their own because nobody gets a pension.
I fully expect to have to work until I can't get hired any more simply because there is no such thing as a pension any more.
Pensions require working in the same place for a very long time with retirement benefits.
The only retirement benefits I've ever seen are "you better save up or you're screwed" and "you'd better have kids, raise them right, and not alienate them because someone's going to have to support you at 70 when you can't get hired for anything but Wal-Mart greeter"
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
3 times your annual salary? try 10x. there were families of the 4.2 with the average 38k/yr total annual income buying $200,000+ homes/condos. when you factor in 20%ish taxes and living expenses, there's simply no way it's possible they could pay it off even on a 40 year mortgage.
it's simple math. take your income and reduce it by 20-50% (how much the federal gov takes). then take out some for necessities (food, housing, transportation, and utilities). then take out 7-9% of the rest for sales tax, and that completely ignores any saving for the future. unfortunately, most people will pay for niceties like extravagant cell phones, satellite tv, laptops, or they'll upgrade their necessities instead of getting insurance or saving. it's not that they can't. it's just that it's inconvenient.
I know whan my dad retired he was bored out of his mind since he loved the job he did. If he could have stayed on working I know he would have done. Plus just because you hit 65 doesn't mean you suddenly arn't interested in earning money. I don't see working beyond 65 as a problem personally unless the person is unwell or unfit to continue in the job.
And of course , if you're a COBOL coder you'll probably still be in demand until the day you go face down in your keyboard (or should that be punched card stack?)
That would be face down on the keyboard of an 029 keypunch machine, sonny.
My father worked as a Federal Judge until age 78 and as an attorney until his mid-80s. Most of it was part time since the his mid-60s and accomplished several things including extra retirement money, money to help kids, getting him out of the house, and having more purpose to his life. I believe it helped keep him active and alert until he died at age 90.5.
is just another tax and a freakin huge one at that. UHC like that implemented her in Canada is proven not to work. It is clearly more expensive than the health coverage Americans enjoy now and far less effective.
The American system needs some work to be sure, but don't think that UHC is the fix.
Unless I'm thinking this whole thing backwards.....maybe our crappy healthcare fits well into the "let the old die" mentality.
Some hints about the root of the problem seems to be the low birth rate and higher life expectancy. Basically, we aren't popping enough kids to work their asses off to pay for our pensions.
It seems that the whole "social state" was based around the fact that the birth rate must be higher than the death rate, or else we will end up with a bunch of old f*rts, with no kids to yell at to get off their respective lawns.
People should really look into private retirement pensions, or things will get really ugly, really fast... well, not that fast, but in a couple of decades.
"A sysadmin is a cross between a detective, a police officer, a gardener, a doctor and a fireman"
Maybe if people didn't buy flat panel TVs, new cars, laptops and homes they cannot afford they could live "sufficiently". The inflation of the past 3 decades certainly doesn't help either, but a pension manager is supposed to grow the fund to deal with inflation. I guess you get what you deserve when you trust a stranger to manage your future.
The less you save the longer you must work. It's simple as that. Of course if you want to work later in life, then by all means go ahead. We need some more people to shoulder the social security burden.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Perhaps its because some people chose a career they enjoy and don't want to give it up at some arbitrary age.
The US has a more flexible educational system (that's not saying its better) and less of a policy of locking people into a career path early in life. There is less resistance here to changing jobs and, as a result, a greater probability that a person will end up doing something they like.
Have gnu, will travel.
old mainframe joke. The bottom edge of a Hollerith card is the nine edge. That was the edge that got sucked into the card reader first. The cards were placed face down on the card reader holding plate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_card/
Do people realize that SS has, since the first year, taken in more money each year than it's paid out? Where did all this money go?
As you probably know, it's not exactly "gone", it's owed to the social security fund by the Federal Government, which borrowed from it to pay for programs that apparently weren't funded fully enough by tax revenues and fees.
The thing is, when you think about it, this means that FICA has essentially become another tax, used to keep *other* taxes lower. And a rather regressive one at that, when you consider that it only applies to individual middle and lower class earnings.
I still think that a social insurance program is a fairly essential part of any really stable retirement system, and there seem to be other countries we might even call "socialist" here in the states that apparently manage to implement them effectively while still having higher average savings rates per household than we do in the U.S.
But you don't make it a winner by slowly transmuting it into a regressive tax. If taxes need to be higher, make 'em higher, so that people can enjoy well-funded effective programs. Or squeal if the tax rates are too high and the funding for programs needs to be cut.
Tweet, tweet.
Nobody I'm personally acquainted with NEEDS a $100 a month cellphone plan, but a fair number of us have valid reasons for such a thing.
I've had a cellphone plan that cost me that much (or a little more) in the past, but it was when I was doing on-site computer service work for a living. I used up enough of my peak minutes in conversations with my employer and other techs, I didn't have almost anything left for personal use without buying a big plan. My employer paid me back for a portion of the usage, too, so it made sense.
Claiming that someone leasing their vehicle is making a "bad choice" is overly-simplistic thinking too. Where I live, public transportation is limited and inefficient. I pretty much NEED a reliable car to get to and from work each day, and to do the service calls I do for my business I run on the side. If I listened to some accountant going on about how I'd be "much wiser" buying a used car and maintaining it for 10 years straight, I'd lose both of my jobs due to its unreliability! In my situation, I know I want to be making a predictable monthly payment on a vehicle with a lot of life left in it. Whether I do a lease (which I haven't ever done yet), or I simply buy a new car, chances are really good I won't keep it more than 3-4 years. So is a lease such a "bad" thing for a person like me? I'd venture to guess probably not, if it's chosen wisely.
I'm not advocating running up a bunch of credit card debt and making min. payments on it for years and years. But I'm just saying, the people preaching we need to "live below our means" are often talking nonsense too. What's IMPORTANT is making sure you only take calculated risks, and don't try to live a lifestyle you can't afford to live.
You want to put some money aside for retirement, in things like a 401K or IRA ... but I think you should also enjoy some of the things in life you can't really enjoy the same way when you're older. (You've probably heard all the jokes about "the only people who can afford a new Corvette are the ones too old to drive it properly"?)
i don't think there has ever been a better time in history to aspire for upward mobility of social status. so many people are going to be broke in 30 years, my goal is to help the rest. when i cold call for an appointment, people ask me what i'm selling, i tell them, "i'm selling you a retirement"
And you do realise the current US regime seriously believes a signing statement allows him to ignore anything he doesn't like in bills that reaches his desk? That most of the time Jr. is threatening to veto or outright ignore bills (when there's enough votes to override his veto) through signing statements?
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
I'm 24, and I'm not planning on getting any retirement money from either the government or any company that I work with. Many of my friends who are around my age also share the same beliefs. We're not worried about the fate of social security simply because we don't expect it to exist by the time we qualify for benefits. I also expect to work past the age of 65, simply because I can't imagine sitting around and doing nothing for 35+ years. What I am doing is saving as much as I can so that in 40 years or so, I have the option to work less or not at all so I can pursue things like volunteer activities, traveling, and hobbies. As I see it, we're slowly shifting over to the privatization of retirement benefits. By the time I get there, we'll be switched over and only the truly destitute might get something from the government.
The Travelling Adventurer
My dad also continued working after "retirement," three days a week. It's something he enjoys, and keeps him busy. My grandma worked until the day she died at 82 years old - she taught people with dyslexia, and also taught teachers how to teach students who have dyslexia. She never did it for the money, she didn't ask for nearly as much payment as she could have if that were the case. She did it because she loved what she was doing, and because she was making a difference for people.
What a stupid summary: don't take a statistic and claim that the reason for its change is "quite evident." (Never mind that the article states that the *average* age is staying the same.) People work longer for many reasons, not just the financial aspects.
US average life expectancy from birth over the years 1980 to 1999 is 75.3 years, or 76.9 years if you leave out fatal injuries due to violence or auto accidents (http://politicalcalculations.blogspot.com/2007/09/natural-life-expectancy-in-united.html)
(Keep in mind when you read about "western countries" with higher life expectancies than the US, the difference tends to be due to "fatal injuries" as we drive more miles and shoot each other more).
So yeah, we're going to get much older and probably healthier for longer periods of time.
Or because of huge medical bills, not earning enough to retire, etc...
Robots will always be more expensive to build/run/maintain than people.
Until you can create a robot that costs less than $1 a day to run and maintain (lots of people in the world live on that) you're not going to see robots replacing people at low-skilled, labor-intensive manual tasks. In other words, it's cheaper to buy and pay maintenance on a robot welder to build cars than to pay a union worker, but it's cheaper to hire some high-school dropout to dig ditches than to buy and maintain a ditch-digging robot.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
The reason US people have to work after retirement is because the US financial system is a sham. The official "core" ionflation figures are a wishful lie, understated by about 66%.
Pension plans are a lie too: in 10-15 years most will be broke or nearly so (along with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid). If you're young now, pay in as little as you can to these "systems" and don't ever expect to get a dime out, because you won't.
These things were pyramid schemes all along, and we are reaching the breaking point where their un-sustainability becomes apparent. People paid in their money "now" in return for the promise of a big pile of money "later"--and for most of these people, "later" isn't ever going to come. Inflation will eat up most of that money, and taxes (yes taxes) will take most of the rest.
~
Because I think how the elderly in other countries do would be a good measuring tool against how effective our programs are. I do however wonder how people can say 'Invest 6 or 4k a week every year' can expect people to do that when they make 20k a year gross? You can't live in a hole in the wall. I suppose you could live in poverty, and be a 'rich' bum. But most people don't live long after retirement anyway. Much less live until retirement.
"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive...it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..."
> If only they came to this country to do things the right way instead of avoiding taxes and stealing peoples identities, then I would have no issues with immigration.
To enter America legally, you have to win the lottery. No, I'm not kidding. You have to win the immigration lottery.
If there was a simpler legal way in, they wouldn't want to take the illegal route. Especially when it's very dangerous and many people die out there in the desert.
I'm sure, though, that someone will point out H1-Bs and other ways in that don't require winning that lottery. But those methods don't apply to the people we're talking about here.
unless you work for any level of government. Private pensions are nearly extinct, being replaced by 401Ks and the like. But taxpayers in my state are fully responsible to pay state retirees' checks if the state retirement system goes broke. Who is going to pay mine if the economy turns bad? I've lost thousands in my 401K this year because of you anti-capitalists saying the economy is bad when its really very good? Thanks a fucking lot!
EXACTLY! But, you won't hear that in the drive by media. It will be all gloom & doom. What's bad for America is good for liberal democrats. When the social security garbage was designed, the lifespan of Americans was in the upper 60 range, which meant if you made it to 65, the government would at best be paying out for a couple of years. Now, ROUTINELY, you have people living beyond their 80's! I plan on working until they push the dirt over me, not because I have to, but because I LIKE TO WORK. Something lost on a lot of people these days! They want an 8 hour day, tons of time off, and a 5 figure salary with no experience. Working your way up the ladder is lost on a lot of these spoiled brats.
What is good for one but bad for everyone in this case is the fallacy of composition. Saving is held up as a common example: when I don't spend as much, I have money for later, but if everyone cuts their spending, it can reduce demand for products enough that people lose their jobs, cancelling out the benefit of their savings. The tragedy of the commons is just one specific case of the fallacy of composition.
Swansea University while not huge (I'm guessing at some point you were/are at Swansea Metropolitan) is certainly big enough that you can't know everyone. At these places if you aren't related to the non-undergrad side of you'll find there are plenty of folks you won't know but who know each other (and each other's nicknames etc).
I'm not from the USA, but I don't see what the big deal here. Maybe if you've worked for 30 years as a cashier at Wall-mart or some other repetitive, mind-destroying job, the you'll be looking every minute of your life to retirement. But for people who love what they do for a living it's doesn't even enter their minds that they would just switch off and stop working at some fixed date in the future.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
It isn't anyone else's job to take care of you. It is your job. Be prepared.
Almost sound advice, but do take care. . .
Cuz, what are you going to do when the currency collapses and the geo-political situation snatches the rug out from everybody's feet? The government certainly isn't going to help anybody out. The primary solution is to be prepared to help each other; trying to take care of yourself exclusively is a very demanding and lonely option when infrastructure fails.
The more you are loved, the more people will be genuinely willing to help you. The more you genuinely help other people, the more you are loved. It's a powerful circle, and indeed, it is the only one which is self-sustaining, whereas selfishness and bitterness do invite love. Just a few thoughts to ponder.
-FL
Why not, exactly? What is "wage" other than price of a service? Why should a neighborhood's plumber have a legal advantage over a Mexican one in my considerations of whom to hire? I may be persuaded to hire a local by other arguments, but to compel me to do so at gun-point is to cause me to either revolt openly or to break the stupid, racket-encouraging, law covertly.
There is no contradiction above — they are not entitled to be represented, and they are not, indeed, represented. They still pay (some) income taxes — so they do end up being taxed without being represented. Most, of course, would love to get legit and pay all of the taxes.
Oh, yes, "illegally". I thought, I addressed this "illegally" accusation already. Let me rephrase it:
By this logic and the crime statistics we ought to be deporting (or just shooting) Blacks — far more of them (percentage-wise) are on welfare, free medical care, or in prison (or a combination of the three). It is, of course, not right — but neither is your argument... That we've saddled ourselves with the stupid promises of free medical and other care to the poor — no matter how abusive, really does not give us the right to kick out the people, who came not to abuse the free care system, but to work. And work is exactly what the vast majority of them come here for, or else you wouldn't be complaining about "cheap labour".
There should not be a line. Ellis Island used to take 2-3 days to process a new arrival and almost everybody was allowed in. That it now takes years is a shame...
While we are arguing about the imperfections of our implementation, the very principle should be:
I hold this truth to be self-evident... Do you agree?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I have a second job because I'm poor, but many of the "elders" seem to be split between need and want. One gentleman I work with was screwed out of his retirement by a scammer promising him a timeshare in Florida. A couple others work for extra spending cash and to remain active. Many of these employees become great friends quickly, remember as we age we loose a lot of our friends, and it becomes a great social scene.
I know we're getting a little off-topic here, but I feel like I need to reply to your comments, at least.
1. Why pretend that only a Republican leader could possibly "raid the fund" for Social Security? Obviously, if the fund is set up in such a way so it can be raided, that's due to loopholes that were never sealed up. There's no reason a Democrat in power couldn't/wouldn't opt to raid the S.S. fund either, if he or she came up with some "reason" to "justify" it. The point is, this is an inherent problem with forcing people to pay into a government managed/controlled retirement fund. It assumes that GOVERNMENT knows better than the people EARNING the money how to save and redistribute it.
2. I agree that some sort of system needs to be in place to help American citizens who are unable to work due to mental or physical handicaps. (That's where the "morality" comes into play, as far as I'm concerned. Just because someone is born with a severe disability shouldn't mean they have to look forward to guaranteed poverty in their old age.) But in most other cases? If people are made aware that the "safety net" of Social Security is being removed and they STILL opt not to put aside any savings? Then so be it. They CHOSE poverty in old age. What's immoral, today, is how we forcibly take away part of the earnings of everyone who works for a living, to ensure these people don't suffer the consequences of their own voluntarily actions!
I asked a friend of mine in Holland about this and the answer I got back was basically: 50% income tax rate + 17% sales tax rate + 10% unemployment in areas.
I'll do without, thanks. Under those conditions, health insurance (which is not the same as health care, which American hospitals must provide by law regardless of ability to pay) is just too expensive.
Oh, btw, add in a multi-tiered government system that requires the poor to pay more before the government health insurance kicks in. This guy in particular receives NO health care at all because he can't afford the initial couple hundred dollars before The Almighty State kicks in.