Robert Samuelson gets his "seriousness" card punched today with a column advocating a raise in the retirement age to 70. I'm genuinely confused by this. The argument, so far as I can tell, is that folks retiring in the 30's didn't live as long and so our current age is way higher in absolute terms than it was then. We need to change that.
But why? I was born in 1984, but let's say I entered the world in 1980. Assuming I make it to 65, which I dearly hope to do, I will, on average, have 14.1 years of life left in me. If nothing changes, the retirement age will be 67, which'll allow me roughly a decade of retirement (12.1 years, actually, but who's counting?). Exactly why should that be raised? What sort of society are we that we can't offer our old ten years to relax and enjoy their kids and grandkids after they've spent roughly 65 years being educated and employed? I personally hope to be a cranky, Safire-esque character writing biting columns and channeling the ghost of Bill Clinton well into my 80's, but I've a bit of trouble seeing why the same should be required of a machinist, or a maitre d'. Which may, come to think of it, explain why the 60 (or so) year old Samuelson is so keen on the idea. When you're putting finger to key for a living, an extra year or two spent doing it in order to net full pension benefits probably isn't the most unfair thing in the world.
Now, don't get me wrong -- folks can do what they want and work until they want. It just seems that if they decide 67 years was plenty, society shouldn't penalize them for it. And if we need to raise taxes some and defund the Pentagon a bit and shift that, tweak this, and spin the third thing so we can offer our citizens that sort of consideration as they age, well, it seems only fair.
