Bringing retirement age down really isn’t feasible when people live longer and longer. It’d likely be better to find a middle-ground, where folks can slowly reduce the hours they work as they age until retiring completely.
I find it appalling that as productivity has increased we haven’t focused on bringing the retirement age down.
Iceblade02@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Dkarma@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This is Bs. America is rich as fuck
Donebrach@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Also Americans are living shorter and shorter due to our healthcare system and (shocker!) wage inequality and all the problems that brings.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Retirement age is whatever age you can afford it. The Social Security age only continues to rise because the point of Social Security isn’t to grant a time after working age for leisure. A big chunk of those that pay into Social Security are supposed to die before taking benefits. The Social Security payments are there so that those that survive that long aren’t living it abject poverty. Thats it. That’s all Social Security (for retirement) is.
phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
The giant loophole is that social security is specifically not reduced for the ways the wealthy make money such as rental income and investments.
partial_accumen@lemmy.world 2 months ago
If I’m understanding you right, part of what you’re referring to is “means testing”. Means testing is usually defined as : “if a person has a way to obtain income outside of Social Security, they should have their Social Security benefits reduced”.
This is a hypercharged political issue. Even the wealthy pay into Social Security to receive the same level of benefit as everyone else. The suggestion of means testing is, if someone can afford to live without Social Security, should they get it at all? This raises lots of problematic questions. A few I can think of is:
So far there’s no legislation that supports means testing for Social Security benefits that have passed that I’m aware of, but I don’t claim to be any kind of expert.
phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
It’s based on the poverty level income and inflation which is also measured/decided by government.
Social Security should be reduced by any income above that poverty level not just working income as it is now. That is the unfair part to me. If you actually work your benefit is reduced, if you just rent out some homes it isnt. Social Security isn’t supposed to be a bonus to retirement. It was literally meant to keep old people off the streets and if you didn’t/couldn’t save up more than that I’m not inclined to do more than that. Essentially old people UBI, keep them off the streets but not a replacement for actual work/savings.
The government uses my taxes to spends billions on things that don’t benefit me directly. I’m a lot more ok with welfare programs(and their massive societal benefits) than bombing Palestinian children. Call it a separate tax all you want it comes out of my paycheck and goes to the government all the same. Fairness or equality of paying in get pay out is not the same as equity or justice of those who have less getting helped more. Those with more having their money go to those with less is exactly how a good society works and is what I hear a lot of the boomers grew up with before pulling up the ladder for everyone younger.
As it is now it is not a 1:1 reduction, it is tiered, I’d still keep that part of it. So if you have more you still have more not equal. It is human to want more than just subsistence living so I don’t see this being an issue. If not, so what? they still paid into it.
Essentially there already is means testing and the way it is done right now favors the haves, when it should favor the havenots.