Conservatives Want to Raise the Retirement Age -- Doing
That Now Would Be Stupid and Cruel

Attacks on Social Security -- along with the transition from
stable pensions to risky 401k retirement funds -- are the
single biggest threat to our long-term economic security.

By Kari Lydersen
AlterNet
September 30, 2010  |

http://www.alternet.org/story/148358/conservatives_want_to_raise_the_retirement_age_--_doing_that_now_would_be_stupid_and_cruel

If House Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, has his way,
people will have to wait until age 70 to retire and receive
full Social Security benefits. Raising the retirement age has
been proposed in recent months by a number of conservative
lawmakers, who point to the fact that Americans have been
living and working longer than in decades past. But in the
midst of an employment crisis that has hit older workers
particularly hard, this idea is both ridiculous and cruel.

People who went back to work or kept working past traditional
retirement age these days are usually not doing so because
they enjoy their jobs; rather decreasing pensions and 401ks
have forced them to work just to eke out a living, even if it
takes a toll on their health. And since the recession, even
those who are willing and able to work through their 60s find
there are just no jobs for them. The steep decrease in
potential jobs for older workers is not likely to change much
even as the economy picks up, experts say, meaning a later
retirement age translates to more time facing unemployment
without a safety net for people who are supposed to be
enjoying their golden years.

Many respected economists are calling for rolling back the
retirement age for full Social Security benefits to the
former benchmark of 65, or even lowering it temporarily -- or
perhaps permanently -- to as low as 60. Noted economist James
K. Galbraith has suggested lowering the retirement age to 62
and the Medicare eligibility to 55 for a three-year window,
both to help elders survive and also to open up jobs for
younger workers during the economic crisis. Similarly,
Economic Policy Institute (EPI) economist Heidi Shierholz
suggested making the full retirement and Medicare eligibility
ages 64 for two years.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, has suggested using $15
billion worth of bailout and stimulus funds to create a six-
month window where people could retire with full benefits at
age 60 - kind of a federal buyout. He framed it as part of a
jobs bill that could open up a million new positions vacated
by early retirees.

Last week, a million French people took to the streets to
protest President Nicolas Sarkozy's proposed overhauls of
their pension system, which includes raising the retirement
age from 60 to 62. But the American public has shown no such
organized opposition to proposals to raise the retirement
age, despite the fact that a majority already suffer
significant penalties for collecting Social Security benefits
early.

EPI economist Monique Morrissey calls attacks on Social
Security -- along with the transition from stable pensions to
risky 401k retirement funds -- the "single biggest threat to
our long-term economic security." But though the threat
affects everyone, she says,"it's happening with a lot of
misinformation and below the radar."

Workers 55 and older typically have much lower unemployment
than younger workers. But during the current recession, many
older workers have lost their jobs as employers shed older,
more experienced and often higher-paid employees. An analysis
of federal data by AARP's Public Policy Institute found that
unemployment among Americans 55 and older increased more than
threefold between 2000 and 2009, and unemployment of those 65
and older more than doubled. The number of Americans in each
of these age groups who are in the workforce, meaning working
or actively looking for work, also increased by about 60
percent in the past decade, as many older Americans are
working longer out of financial necessity.

_____________________________________________

Portside aims to provide material of interest
to people on the left that will help them to
interpret the world and to change it.

Submit via email: [log in to unmask]
Submit via the Web: portside.org/submit
Frequently asked questions: portside.org/faq
Subscribe: portside.org/subscribe
Unsubscribe: portside.org/unsubscribe
Account assistance: portside.org/contact
Search the archives: portside.org/archive