Retirement Age 69

WaPo reported Under current law, the retirement age for full Social Security benefits is 65 1/2 and is scheduled to reach 67 for those born in 1960 or later. The possible increase to 69 over two decades or more was among the suggestions that Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, presented to fellow Republicans on the panel last week as part of an attempt to give the program greater financial solvency, the officials said....

This seems like a very good idea. People are living much longer, and if they increase this number it will make it harder for companies to force people to retire at 65.

"Rural Americans tend to be older and more likely to depend on Social Security.

The reason for that is the young find better job opportunities in the cities.

In fact, more than 90 percent of counties in America with high senior populations are rural counties. In 2001, 20 percent of rural Americans were 60 years old or older, significantly higher than the 15 percent of seniors living in metropolitan communities," Reps. Stephanie Herseth, D-S.D., and Bob Etheridge, D-N.C., said in a joint statement. The two co-chair the Democratic House Rural Working Group.

Dr. Steven Taylor blogged Given that the law already has already started to phase in a retirement age of 67, I can’t see anything wrong with slowly adding (over two decades, according to the story) another two years. There is nothing speifically sacrosanct about 65. It isn’t as if the body automatically shuts down at 65 and so that number was chosen for reasons of biological imperative. Not to mention that at the rate we are going, by the time such a proposal was put into place that the life expectancy will probably have creeped higher a tad. It is certainly worth consideration.

Leopold Stotch blogged I'm looking for a little help/perspective on this one: when I started working at age 16, I was told that the federal government was going to take a portion of my earnings for my own good, but that there was nothing to worry about because I'd get it back -- plus interest -- when I turned 65. Now they want to back out on what at the time seemed like a contractual agreement. If they extend the retirement age, aren't they essentially reneging on a contract because they can't stop spending money on superfluous things?

For one thing they lied to you. There is NO guarantee that you will get anything, and if you are still young, you better hope that Bush gets the personal accounts approved, because at least then you will be guaranteed you will have that money, since the government won't be able to spend it like they spend your FICA money in the year they take it. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme that is quickly getting close to collapse, as fewer and fewer workers must support more and more retired people.

Spoons blogged In 1940, when the retirement age was set at 65, the average life expectancy for Americans who made it into adulthood was... 65. Today it's about 75. Raising the retirement age is a no-brainer. Unfortunately, this issue has been so relentlessly demagogued by the Democrats that I doubt very much that this change will ever happen.