In Ireland the retirement age was 65 years, now it is 66. Any Person born after January 1 1955, the age of retirement increases to 67 years, and Who ever was born after January 1 1961 the age of retirement increases to 68 years. In Europe it is likewise. My Question is when I'm 66 or 67 years of age after working in very physical labour all My Life on building sites, Who would keep Me in employment ? Who would be willing to continue to pay My wages, when I'm all used up ? I am aware that Governments are attempting to ease the pressure on the pension fund, yet many of these Countries have massive unemployment also. Why not reduce the retirement to 60 years, and there would be plenty work for the young unemployed.
The only way someone can "play" the system is through identify theft.
Now there isn't any forced retirement, but ones job can easily be eliminated due to downsizing. It's usually the older work who has been loyal to a company for 30-40 years who is let go because their salary is high. Companies can bring in a college kid for much less with lesser benefits.
I am 70 years old and my boss is older... we laugh that between the two of us there is one good brain :P I know of one lady who is in her 80s so works part-time as a receptionist and she loves it, it gets her out of the house. But she isn't the norm.
Too many times I have heard of people being let go due to downsizing and they are in their very early 60's.... health care would be covered under COBRA but that is limited, then what? Buying insurance on he open market is expensive unless one had a poverty type income. Then its years before Medicare kicks in. I took social security at 66 as I wanted to make sure I got some of the money I had put into the system, because at my age I never knew what was around the corner health wise.
If the Social security fund had not been raided by a previous Govt benefits would be more likely to continue. the same thing has happened with many private pension funds leaving people who thought they had planned for the future destitute.
Making the rich pay more taxes is not going to solve the problems of the poor.
It is going to take a far bigger effort than that.
All this is well and good, but they do need to find a way to contain costs. It's hard to encourage people to save when the cost of housing, food, and medical care are so high. A modest house in my area is now going for a half million dollars! Ouch. The price of housing and medical care have far outpaced the average paycheck.
So we're told to save on one side and told to pay on the other. We can certainly get into a crunch.