Generations of racial injustice in the United States have resulted in the life expectancy of African Americans being far below that of whites.
Americans pay into Medicare and Social Security their entire working lives. They expect these programs to there for them when they retire.
But corporate lobbyists and their allies in Washington want to cut benefits for both of these programs. One way they advocate of doing this is raising the retirement age to 70.
Their argument is that Americans are living longer, and therefore it makes sense to raise the retirement age. However most gains in life expectancy have gone to white-collar workers, and blue-collar workers are barely living longer at all. Here’s a chart of life expectancy from the Center for Economic Policy and Research that demonstrates this fact:
When you break down the situation by race, it gets even worse. While some politicians clamor for the retirement age to be raised to 70, the life expectancy of black males is only 70.8, according to the latest data from the U.S. National Vital Statistics System. That’s nearly six years behind non-Hispanic white men, whose life expectancy is 76.2.
Thus, raising the retirement age wouldn’t just disproportionately hurt blue collar workers, it would disproportionately harm African American men. We should not be considering policies that would have such a harmful impact.
They will not be satisfied unless we are all working until we die. That’s the plan.
Amen
Can one imaging someone doing hard labor work from the time he reached eighteen –climbing ladders over a hundred feet and all the other hard work these fine people do. Does anyone realize by the time some of them reach fifty they must “slow down” I’ve seen it happen during my life, over and over again. These politicians that think that way sit on their butts all day in Washington- thinking of ways to keep from paying their hard earned Social Security, for which they paid into for many years. Shame on us, if we think that way!!!
My father, his father, and mother all died at 60. I was born in 1961 and they have already moved the goal line on my social security retirement once already! If they move it again, I will never see any of the rewards for all the years I paid into that system! My father died of lung cancer and had to appeal to get his social security early even though he had terminal cancer. After over two years of appeal he got his social security one month before he died. His wife had to file bankruptcy to pay all his medical bills after he died so she could save her house to live in. This is THEFT, pure and simple and I wouldn’t blame people if they started robbing those BANKSTERS to get some of their money back soon that those BANKSTERS are using their paid politicians in DC to steal from us!!!!
Are you progressive enough?sign this petition and promote AMERICAN DEMOCRACY AND JUSTICE https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/act-puerto-rican-referendum-november-6-2012/c4tVBBlY?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shortur … #humanrighs #civilrights UP TO 70? no way! build 10 stealth bombers less a year and give that money to SS.
My State Employer (Minnesota) started to pick on eployees when they were in their mid 50’s, I retired early as a result of it and a friend of mine kept working until she was fired (Nurse Supervisor hounded her. She was a lpn.
Don’t raise the retirement wage.
First they refuse to contribute to retirement plans. They file bankruptcy prot.ction. Skim off the funds. and harrass older workers. and remember that Clarence Thomas made it no longer possible to file a claim under age discrimination
OOps protection not prot.ction
Raising the retirement age is completely unnecessary. In fact the idea of a retirement age is altogether unnecessary.
The simple reason is that actuaries are perfectly capable of determining what the payout will be for any given sample of people retiring at any given age. Retire at age x and your payout will be y. Regardless of what your age is there is a value of y that fits.
It is perfectly reasonable to allow people to retire at any time, and adjust their payout rates accordingly.
The result would be a system much more flexible to individual needs, and without the political football of retirement age.
Do things this way and the uncertainty of future retirement age goes away.
It would be a much better system than we have today, and it would work for the foreseeable future.