Image via WikipediaThe bland and faux tanned Minority Leader thinks that the issue is that people are living longer and so we have to pay Social Security benefits for a longer period of time, thus making it too expensive. So what is the simple (minded) solution? Raise the age that people can stop working. This way there is less time between our elderly citizens leaving the workforce and dying. That will keep the costs down.
Leaving aside the fact that there is enough money to pay for the Social Security of our citizens because the workers of today pay into the system that pays for the benefits of the retired, this is an incredibly bad idea. It is true that life expectancy has increased in the 65 years since the program was put into place, with both men and women increasing their life expectancy by about 15 years.
The thing about life expectancy is that it is an average number and that average can be skewed upward by a few outliers who live an extremely long time. Using an average number like life expectancy to determine the appropriate age to retire means that millions of citizens will never reach that age and qualify for Social Security. Another issue is the nature of work.
While it might be achievable for someone who works in an office to work all through their 60’s not every job or even trade is sitting at a computer. Many of the jobs that allow non-college graduates to earn a good living and raise a family are physically demanding. Working in a hot factory, climbing electrical poles, driving buses, cleaning hotel rooms are all jobs that someone in their 60’s are not going to be as able to do. Take a look around at the people you know in their mid or late 60’s. They may be in great health but that does not mean most of them can spend the day in physically demanding labor, day after day after day.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t let anyone over 60 on a high ladder if I can possibly help it. It is not that they are more likely to fall (though vertigo becomes more of a problem as we age) but that the consequences of such a fall are far more serious to them than someone in their 20’s or 40’s. Living longer does not automatically mean that you have an extended ability to do the same kind of work as you did in the prime of your life. In fact there is very little evidence that we are significantly stronger as a people in our 60’s and 70’s and beyond than previous generations. It is the medicines and medical technology that we have today which is extending our lives, not some change in the way our bodies age. Add this to the issue that people with more physically demanding jobs are the ones most likely to have small injuries that add up over time and you can see how raising the eligibility age for Social Security is a really bad idea.
Yes, there is always going to be a segment of the population which will be strong and fit all through their 60’s. They have existed in our populations for a long time, but they are not the norm, they are at the far right of the normal distribution. The vast majority of people are going to become more and more fragile with age. Sure we can replace hips and knees, but while that makes people more mobile it does not make them the same as when they were younger.
We should also never lose sight of exactly why the radical Republicans want to monkey with Social Security in the first place. They want to be able to reduce the amount of taxes paid to by citizens, no matter what that money pays for. They have been unmasked in terms of their claim of being the party of fiscal responsibility. No matter what they say, they are not really interested in doing the things it takes to keep the United States financially sound. If they were they would be talking about raising taxes, the way their Saint Ronald Regan did.
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