Let's Reduce the Social Security Retirement Age to 60!

Many police and firemen can retire at 50 or 55. How is their work physically more debilitating than that of a mason or carpenter or steelworker or fisherman?
People who work in physically demanding jobs are worn out by the age 50 or 60, why should they be expected to work longer than is physically impossible?

It is easy enough to sit at your desk and say, "I can do this until I am 70 so raising the retirement age is OK with me". That sentences those who do work that involves actual physical labour to work to their deaths and never have a retirement.

 

You bring up valid points, but we really would need to put a lockbox on funds before this is even feasible.

As things currently stand, SS funds get raided more often than remote communities in Afghanistan.

 

Pretty much. This seems to be an unstoppable trend.

 

SS funds are invested in the safest securities on the planet, US Treasury bonds.
Where would you have SS invest them?

 

its not afew hundred dollars a year..its 15.3 per cent of your income..your employer is paying more than you...

 

A mandated private system would actually work to that affect. The current failing ponzi-scheme will only lead to higher taxes and waiting longer to recieve benefits.

 

This is completely delusional, for this reason if for none other: almost nobody who would get the Social Security benefit at 60 would be financially able to quit work -- because SS simply doesn't pay nearly enough money to offset what even a crappy job would pay! The average person who gets Social Security makes $1,230 per month! Even a bottom-feeder kind of part-time job (~20 hours per week) would pay more than that! Better put the thinking-cap back on....

 

but we would have to change the lousy 401k rules too..they do not favor the worker..

 

I have a better idea. Eliminate the income tax and make exports 23% more competitive. Goodby unemployment. Hello entire paycheck.

 

And that worked so well in Chile...

The baby boomers paid for a lot of their parents SS and put in an extra $3Trillion towards their own retirement that is now safely invested in US Treasury Bonds. There are many people who are completely ignorant of this , some of them deliberately. They are also the ones who usually think that this $3Trillion does not have to be paid back for some reason.

 

It would also bankrupt SS faster than it would be already.

 

Safely invested in T-bills, what a joke.

The only thing going on here is that the government plundered 3T and is leaving the bill for a smaller group to pay. While this theft is going on, there is a vast number of boomers expecting their crack.

Why not just go and spend all your retirement savings now and force your grandkids to support you at gun point later?

 

they didnt plunder just 3 trillion..its really 11 trillion owed to s.s. right now..theres still 3 trillion left that they didnt tough yet

 

With all the Enron accounting in government, it is hard to know what the numbers are exactly.

 

just published 3 months ago..11 trillion owed to ss..and reserves of 2.9 trillion

 

Can you provide a link? I'm interested in seeing this info.

 

It can still be done with math. So you can all back off or make me whip out my scientific calculator and show it to you in numbers!

 

I thought this thread would be about reducing SS retirement checks which I am in favor of if coupled with other cuts and tax plans.
I think even twenty dollars per month per retiree would be a lot of money tho I have not put a pencil to it.
And BTW I live off my spouse's Vet and retirement, so it's not like I'm passing this over to some other demographic.

**Retirement at 60 looks good but at this juncture given the economy, I don't see it as feasible.

 

No offense, but since you think we can afford to reduce the retirement age to 60, I'm not sure I would trust your numbers.

 

The failure of the government to get its fiscal house in order to begin paying SS back the $3Trillion it borrowed is entirely the fault of the republican party since they took control of the Congress and the Presidency in 2001. In the 1990s the Federal government began a path of fiscal responsibility that recognized that the borrowing obligations it had taken on regarding the SS fund would be due beginning around 2010 and adopted a plan of reduced deficits and a paying down of the national debt in preparation. It was projected that economic growth would pay off the national debt by 2008 and accumulate enough surplus to begin paying back the SS bonds without effecting other government spending. If the plan had been followed the stimulus spending in response to the economic downturn of 2008 would have made the total Federal debt $4-5Trillion instead of the $14-15Trillion that so many on the right, who supported the short sighted Bush tax cuts, are now so exercised about.

If you are really a fiscal conservative you should never vote for Republicans. Democrats may tax and spend but that is way better than Republicans who borrow and spend.

 

Wait a minute, are you saying that if a Democrat had been elected in 2000, there was some plan to pay off the entire national debt by 2008? Al Gore sure didn't run on such a plan, and frankly, I don't believe you. I think you are confusing pre-dot-com bubble projections by the CBO with some sort of plan. Or maybe Al Gore could have gone back in time and some how prevented the dot come bubble popping. That sounds more likely.

 

It is possible to pull off. A lot of things would have to be changed to facilitate this. Maybe if you're over 60 you can only work part time... the point of this is to keep the older folk out of the workplace and allow younger folk to put in for it. Considering you'd work from 25 to 60, that's 35 years in the workforce. You're telling me you can't come up with something that you pay into for 35 years then get it back?

 

I'm not sure you could come up with practical changes to allow people approaching 60 now to retire.

You may be able to come up with a plan allowing people just now entering the workforce to retire at 60 though.

 

I bet if we just gave some kids some rocks and told them to go smash some windows that would stimulate the economy also, all those windows would have to be replaced and the window companies would hire workers.

 

Thank you Frederic Bastiat.