Originally published by Breaking Modern:
It’s too bad, but Baby Boomers continue to belie generational stereotypes. In a recent survey, they overwhelmingly say they either feel too healthy or too financially insecure to retire at the normal age 65. Even to the bitter end, they continue to overshadow Generation Xers and Millennials who need them to step aside gracefully and make room for them.
6 Comments.
Didn’t they tell you the government has been trying to teach people who think they’re entitled to entitlements just because they bought and paid for them that they are all badly mistaken for expecting government handouts?
Retirement age is no longer 65, that’s early retirement age now, and if you start collecting social security then, you only get about 60% of your full monthly benefit.
Full retirement age is now 70, and with the new guidelines for medical care for the elderly who can’t afford to pay for it themselves (i.e., don’t waste the money) we’re all hoping no one will collect another dime.
After all, housing, feeding and providing medical care for the elderly with their own money (that the government collected during their working lives) takes away money that’s desperately needed to keep the US safe from 1.6 billion goatherds who have figured out how to turn goat scat into thermonuclear weapons and who plan to nuke the US and force the survivors to live under Sharia law.
Fortunately, most US corporations don’t allow people to stay past 65 (and git rid of them much earlier in tech fields). But that’s not going to help the X-ers, since those positions are being eliminated, not re-filled. All those jobs will be replaced with a computer, a South Asian, and/or an East Asian, as well they should be.
When I first saw the lead, I thought, FUCK YOU TOO TED! And then I realized that Ted is also a boomer.
Every 90 degrees, DIVIDE-and-CONQUER is is a 360 mandate of the .001 percent.
DanD
I took early retirement and haven’t regretted it for a minute. I’ll soon be 72 years of age, and I wouldn’t have lived long enough to recover my retirement investments if I had delayed until “fully eligible.” (If one dies before retiring, what happens to the contributions one has made into the system?) )
Well, it’s also reallocated to Zionland, so the fascist Netanyahoo-bots of Israeli tyranny can continue achieving the total ethnic cleansing of Palestine. A fantasmically re-created (for the first time) Jew-land EXCLUSIVELY, only for Jews!
After all, it’s YHWH, so no historically provable facts needed here.
Darius II rolls over (once again) in his grave ~
http://www.askwhy.co.uk/judaism/index.php
Keep in mind the deceptivest of math in all this.
These are the figures that social security’s calculator generated for my income:
Say I retire at 62 ($1,063/month).
At 65 ($1,341).
At 72 ($2,009).
Say I make it to 100. So (years*12 months*payout):
Age 62 — 38*12*1063=484K
Age 65 — 35*12*1341=563K
Age 72 — 28*12*2009=675K
Look at the yearly payout increases. If I sweat it out from 62 to 65, three years, and live to 100, I’ll have gotten 80K extra out of the system. That’s about $2.5K a year. Is it worth $200 a month to keep going to work for three years? Is it worth my while to work for an extra decade? Yes, I’m collecting almost double, but it’s hilarious to think I’m going to be living the high life at $24K a year. That’s still appalling. Keep in mind, these are the numbers for my making it to 100, which is not likely.
In the U.S., average life expectancy is below 80. So let’s take 80 as the check out.
Age 62 — 18*12*1063=229K
Age 65 — 15*12*1341=241K
Age 72 — 8*12*2009=192K
Now, for me to work three more years, to 65, will earn me $12K total over the course of my retirement life. Look at that THIS way. Knowing this RIGHT NOW, I have 20 years to come up with $12K from another source. That’s $50 a month. If I take $25 out of every paycheck from now on — and that’s a pittance — and just stick the money in an envelope (going into investment options would complicate the calculation), I can retire 3 years earlier than otherwise with no penalty to my end rate. The question becomes, is it worth paying a $25 a week shakedown from now on so that I can retire three years earlier than expected?
If I had done this when I was 22, I could have simply peeled off a single $10 every paycheck, stuck it my mattress, and laughed at how I’d bought myself three years extra retirement.
I cannot stress the following two points enough:
1. I am not an investment strategist. I am still paying off student loans, I am the last person you should be going to for advice on finances.
2. Just running the government’s numbers will show you that the people who are working to 72 or beyond are doing it because of three reasons:
A. They’re too stupid to do basic math.
B. They’re too broke to retire.
C. They actually have jobs they enjoy and see no reason to retire.
An entire “retirement” industry has sprung up over the years consisting of the same basic scare tactics: you won’t have enough to retire on. And then they show you ads with seniors golfing and taking wine tours and visiting Europe and so forth.
It’s a racket. When you retire is not the time to go backpacking through Europe. Your body, after four decades of processed food and office lighting will be crippled. Medical problems will start coming along. Only a slender fraction of people who’ve earned their way will be robust enough to be able to “do all the things” that they never got around to doing before. Most of us will be just as happy with full cable, a good sofa, Internet connectivity, and access to a local supermarket and a public library. You can have a perfectly satisfying retirement without diving the Barrier Reef or summiting Everest. Don’t let the numbers the sharpies are wielding scare you.
Many (okay, a few) of those who choose to defer retirement will not live to reach the age they have chosen. That was one of the considerations I mulled over when I decided to take early retirement. Well, next month I’ll be 72 – and as I stated before, I haven’t regretted my decision at all. 🙂