Laboring Longer a Growing Trend For Americans

AxSpark writes "More and more Americans have the tendency to work after retirement and this number is growing day by day. Last year this number was 6 million people of 65 and over working. The reason for that is quite evident: pensions are not enough for sufficient living."

Um, or...

It could be that a lot of people are still healthy enough to continue working after age 65... and some people actually want to!

Re:Um, or...

Think again.... Most people don't have the resources. I know people over 65 who work 2 jobs, 7 days a week, to pay medical bills, rent, and food.

A handful of people work because they want to. Most work because they have no choice. Do you think the greeters at Wal-Mart are there because they want to? Or because they have to eat?

Your statement is the sort of spin I'd expect from the neocons. Ultimately, people want to work because the alternative is starving, or not taking your meds, or living on the street....

As someone who is nearing that age, I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to retire without working. It's not easy, and our broken medical system is a huge part of it.

Re:Um, or...

my parents work to pay for health insurance.. their house and cars are all paid for - they have no debt - they have a savings.. but having to pay over 1k a month for insurance and still having 8 years till medicade kicks in .. yea they work just to have health insruance

Re:Um, or...

Yeah, my grandmother was in that situation until relatively recently. She kept working until she was about 75 and ill health forced her to stop working - note, not "retire".

The reason for this? She is a lazy bitch who never worked a real job in her life and relied on whatever man she was with to provide for her. Her first husband (my grandfather) left her. Her second was a great old guy who finally died of Parkinson's and left her a wad of cash. the third guy was a bum and a hustler and took that money when he ran to Mexico - literally.

She never really saved any money, never invested herself in a job with future, and never planned. She doesn't have a pension because she never had a career. Social Security is keeping her afloat, and the fact that she scammed her way into a religiously affiliated care facility. And when that runs out, my Dad will take care of her, because as neglectful as she was, she is still family.

Yes, there are plenty of people who had bad luck, and perhaps don't "deserve" what they are dealing with in their old age. But that does not negate the fact that there are also those who squandered their good luck, and are now asking others to pay the price.

Re:Um, or...

My Dad is 78 years old and still runs his own accounting business. I truly suspect, as does he, that if he didn't, he'd be dead by now.

He uses the extra money he gets during tax season to take expensive vacations, usually in the late summer or fall, with my mom.

Nearly everyone my parents knew that didn't keep active have already passed on.

That said, if people can't afford things, I'd say it's partial evidence of the giant failure of social security. Would those pensions have lasted longer if that extra 12% went into a 401k instead of the SS black hole? Do people realize that SS has, since the first year, taken in more money each year than it's paid out? Where did all this money go? There'd be trillions of dollars if they'd have saved and invested it (even at safe moderate rates of around 5%). So where is it? The federal government takes every penny extra and leaves a worthless IOU.

When Bush pushes a spending deficit of $400 billion, he's not including $200 billion (yes, nearly $200 billion) that the federal government is "borrowing" from SS.

Even people earning minimum wage would generally have sufficient retirement funds if they were saving 12% in a personal retirement plan.

People also don't understand their pensions. They should be able to tell way ahead of time if they will receive an adequate amount of money.

The band-aid solution that was SS is making less and less sense. A real goal would be to create an environment that allows people to save enough of their money for retirement. Get the government out of the SS boondongle, refine the tax structure so that people are encouraged to save. Hey, even make it mandatory if you have to, but at least allow people to decide for themselves how to do it.

Indeed - sitting at home doing nothing, very dull

I know whan my dad retired he was bored out of his mind since he loved the job he did. If he could have stayed on working I know he would have done. Plus just because you hit 65 doesn't mean you suddenly arn't interested in earning money. I don't see working beyond 65 as a problem personally unless the person is unwell or unfit to continue in the job.

And of course , if you're a COBOL coder you'll probably still be in demand until the day you go face down in your keyboard (or should that be punched card stack?)

Re:Um, or...

Either they choose to keep working, or they didn't put enough of THEIR OWN money away for retirement.

Why should we trust someone else to plan retirement for us? Yes, yes, I know, 40 years ago was a different time, but for those who didn't work a cushy job that came with a pension (my paternal grandparents were farmers, my maternal grandparents knew the pension would be insufficient), you realize you need to sock money away for retirement.

Myself, I plan on being financially independent by 55 (and have the plan to do it), although I have no intentions to stop working. At that point in time, work is no longer a necessity, you aren't doing it because you NEED it, but because you WANT it, and I can stop to take a trip with my wife whenever we feel the urge, or go visit the kids, etc. It's a good place to be in.

Re:Um, or...

How is health care related to old age pensions being insufficient ?

Fix health care, and all you do is make old people live longer, thus further burdening the pension system.

The fact is, in most western countries, the average age is increasing. The people on pensions now are being paid with the taxes you and I pay today. When 30 years down the road, we are pensioners, there simply won't be any money left to pay everyone a pension.

I was advised as far back as 1987 that I shouldn't rely on the UK state pension, and should think about a private one ... here we are 21 years later, and oops, pension payouts aren't sufficient ... anyone surprised ?

Re:Um, or...

IIRC in Europe its a pension whether it comes from a private employer or the govt.

Private pensions aren't actually that good an idea. Lot of industries (steel, auto, airline) that gave pensions to employees are currently struggling under massive pension debt because of technological advances that have substantially reduced the workforces in those companies...Pretty much the same thing that's going to happen to the US in a decade or so.

It'd be better to have a government-run pension plan that everyone pays into (than a private system) to help the system itself adapt to the changing workforce.

Re:Um, or...

Private pensions aren't actually that good an idea. Lot of industries (steel, auto, airline) that gave pensions to employees are currently struggling under massive pension debt because of technological advances that have substantially reduced the workforces in those companies

That wouldn't be a problem if they had properly funded the pension plans to begin with instead of making promises that they had no intention of keeping.

Uhhh, what the hell are you talking about?

The boomers had plenty of kids. My parents were boomers, and I've found there is no lack of people around my age. The population growth in the United States is still positive, in case you haven't noticed. No, there isn't a perfect distribution among age groups but where do you get this idea that baby boomers didn't have any children? Do you see a massive gap in our population? I sure don't.

Re:Um, or...

Well said. At 44 years old, I expect to work until 70, and I expect to pay higher Social Security taxes along the way. It's not good or bad policy, just reality.

There is only one thing that could help make a difference for most Americans - owning lot's of foreign investments that we could sell off for a while during crunch time. Unfortunately, we've become a debter nation [blogs.com], so that plain went to Hell in a hand basket.

Re:Um, or...

Fortunately for us, we're still in a position to attract skilled immigrants to make up the labor shortfall...That gives us the benefit of their labor, without having to have paid their costs as they were growing up. No, you're not. You make immigrants feel like criminals and second class citizens, people are afraid to come to your country on business these days.

If only they came to this country to do things the right way instead of avoiding taxes and stealing peoples identities, then I would have no issues with immigration. As it stands the illegals need to either do it the right way or take the high way home. They are un-needed in our society as illegals. Illegal immigrants take jobs where they are paid under the table in with cash, so they are not taxed. My brother has his identity stolen by an illegal immigrant and fucked up his credit, and made him owe over 19K in back taxes to the IRS. He is lucky he wasn't arrested for tax evasion.

Re:Um, or...

You're wrong about immigration... people still come here in droves. The only unwelcomed ones are the ones that come here illegally, and that's always been the case and it's always been quite clear.

On the rest... I have to agree. The federal government has phenomenally screwed things up for about the past 80 years or so. It's a bipartisan screwup that's been going on for generations.

There absolutely needs to be zero deficit. I know some would argue about deficit as a percentage of GDP; I hear things like "Well, you bought a house, right? That was like 3 times your annual salary! Sometimes it's OK to have debt." Yeah, sometimes the government has a war [insert witty thing here] sometimes there's a natural disaster... but to go deeper into debt, year after year, with no end in sight, is just plain ridiculous.

Anybody who has any financial difficulty right now (carrying debt, interest rates go up, spending too much of their income to repay debts) knows this... if you were the federal government's accountant, you'd quit at such reckless spending. And it's been shown time and again how if a private corporation or individual tried some of the accounting "tricks" the government pulls, they'd be spending time in jail.

If only...

If only there were some sort of government solution that would guarantee retirement income for everyone. That would fix everything.

Re:If only...

If only people didn't look to government solutions and planned for own retirements.

Sure, blame the income

The reason for that is quite evident: pensions are not enough for sufficient living.

Or: expenses are not enough under control for sufficient living. We all spend too much money on frivolous nonsense during spring and summer of life, but we don't have to.

(Not blaming anyone personally, I'm the first to realise I might have a big problem if all the drinking and smoking just doesn't kill me in time.)

If only...

If only you got a pension for reading Slashdot. I could retire now.

"Quite evident"?

Sure, some people are going to keep working because they need the money, but that's hardly proof of the fundamental reason for the trend. I think it's much more likely that it's related to the fact that people are living longer and healthier, and a lot of people (most?) don't want to just lie around the house.

In the "old days", 65 was one foot in the grave. These days, there are a lot more healthy 65 year olds that aren't content to believe that life is over and you might as well start waiting to die.

So what?

If you didn't earn enough money to support yourself in the lifestyle you want, you have no right to that lifestyle. I'm sick of the entitlement attitude that permeates this society. The day that the American Dream went from a dream of liberty, to a house, 2 cars, middle class family, dog, cat, etc. was the day that this country sold itself out to the highest bidder. If Ben Franklin were alive, he'd probably add a corollary to his infamous quip about security: they that lust after wealth more than liberty deserve neither; it was from that lust for economic equality, unearned money and sense of entitlement that most of the horrors of the 20th century were born.

Re:So what?

Yes, I too blame this problem on the "entitlement attitude."

It's not like people running out of retirement money has anything to do with people living much longer than in the past, or the skyrocketing cost of health care.

Laboring longer . . . as we should be

As people stay healthier longer, people SHOULD continue to work. We shouldn't conceptualize the stages of human life in terms of years; Instead, we should conceptualize it in terms of percentages of expected life. Granted, the first 18 or so years are pretty much set in stone, but after that, we have a certain percentage of life available for each occupied stage. Looking only at labor, first there is education. Then, there is the career ramp-up. Then we have career maintenance -- perhaps a career switch (using skills from career #1 in career #2 . . . or not). Finally, we wind our careers down. A percentage of our healthy adult lives should be dedicated to each of these, with a percentage left for active retirement. There's nothing wrong with the actual number of years within each stage to increase in proportion to the amount of time we have to live well. This is the biggest benefit of progress in health and life expectancy.

Italians have spent pensions funds already

At retirement time, in Italy, 90% of people live on state pension. Let me tell you what happens.

State pension works by having current workers pay pension of retired people. In the golden years (70,80,90) we had people working and an apparent "extra" money into the pension "funds". Politicians thought to use the extra money to send the retiring workers early to pension.
Not only, but it was "normal" to go to pension with 90% of the last monthly income

The problem is that workforce is now declining, taxes are increasing and we currently pay pension to people that are just lucky to have retired early with a hefty pension (apparently nobody is willing to know how much a worker has PAID into the pension scheme and refund just that, plus interest).

I know I will have to work as long as I can, I am just upset that jurnalists and politicians brush this issue under the carpet leaving for when it will be too late

We do have private pension scheme but they are a money drain (basically another way to give luxury cars to some fund manager) they give no guarantee on the capital (as far as I know) and after the Parmalat scandal [wikipedia.org] there is even less trust on any private fund manager institution (Parmalat is not a fund manager, but if you "invested" on their bonds you have lost the money)

Re:One more way it could be.

For a lot of us, the distinction isn't really there. I'm a freelancer, so the boundary between working and not-working is quite fluid. Sometimes I'm working on things I definitely know I will be able to sell. Sometimes I'm working on things I'm fairly sure I won't be able to sell, but which are fun. Sometimes I'm working on things that are fun, but I might be able to sell later. From some perspectives I work most of the time, but since a lot of it is stuff I never expect to be paid for it's not always such a clear-cut boundary. I'm not sure what retirement would really mean for me. Possibly that I'd stop expecting to be paid for anything I did, but since being paid isn't really the motivation for any of it I don't see that it would make a huge difference.

Re:Investments!

Make it optional. I am smart enough to save for my retirement, so let me do it myself. I've already realized that there won't be any social security for anyone my age so I'm already saving with that in mind. Lets go ahead and take the next step and let me opt out of paying the social security tax completely. Obviously this won't happen since SS was never a 'savings' program anyways. SS was always designed as a wealth transfer program. A way to take care of the old by taking money from the young. The problem is that this plan only works when you have enough young people to take care of the old people.