retirement age
18 May 2005Matt Yglesias has a good summary post on why raising the retirement age as a method to cut benefits in social security is a bad idea (ignoring for the moment that a benefit cut is unnecessary to begin with).
Matt Yglesias has a good summary post on why raising the retirement age as a method to cut benefits in social security is a bad idea (ignoring for the moment that a benefit cut is unnecessary to begin with).
Well, I think that is sortof his point – that life expectancy is rising but health (and ability) do not necessarily increase on the same curve.. He doesn’t provide much empirical evidence to back up his assertion, though.
Right. He’s got a good argument against raising the retirement age to match life expectancy, but, without facts, no argument against raising the retirement age at all.
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Actually what “makes sense” is to raise the retirement age as “health expectancy” increases. If higher life expectancy just means that people get to feel old longer, he’s absolutely right. But if it’s accompanied by better health later in life, then why not raise retirement age to go with that?
Yes, it discriminates among occupational categories. But so does what we have now. Not everyone can carry a vacuum cleaner at 70, but not everyone can carry one at 60, either.
I have no idea whether this “health expectancy” is on the rise, or even how to define and measure it. But talking about life expectancy alone smells of a straw man.