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une 12, 2005
In Overhaul of Social Security, Age Is the Elephant in the Room
By ROBIN TONER and DAVID E. ROSENBAUM
WASHINGTON, June 11 - Americans turning 65 this year can expect to live, on average, until they are 83, four and a half years longer than the typical 65-year-old could expect in 1940. And government actuaries predict that American life spans will just keep growing.
This demographic trend - by 2040, the average 65-year-old will live to about 85 - has major financial implications for Social Security and major political implications for the lawmakers now trying to overhaul the system.
Policy experts across the political spectrum, who agree on little else, have told Congress in recent weeks that any effort to improve Social Security's long-term finances should somehow deal with this jump in life expectancy - by adjusting benefits, raising the retirement age, increasing taxes or creating new incentives to work longer.
Not only are Americans living longer, these experts say, but most are also retiring earlier, and these demographic pressures will be heightened by the sheer size of the baby boom generation - 78 million strong - which will begin to retire in the next five years.
Major committees in the House and Senate, struggling to produce Social Security legislation this summer, are beginning to confront the longevity issue. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, the chairman of the Finance Committee, says the retirement age will be addressed in the solvency plan he hopes to develop with his fellow party members in the coming week, and his Republican counterparts in the House are holding hearings on the issue on Tuesday.
"We've got to deal with reality," said Senator Trent Lott, Republican of Mississippi.
But the politics are treacherous, all the more so because Republicans are dealing with it alone. Democrats have refused to engage in discussions over Social Security's finances until President Bush withdraws his proposal to create private investment accounts in the program.
The most direct way to deal with the financial strain of greater longevity is simply to raise the retirement age, which now stands at 65 years and 6 months and will gradually rise under current law to 67 for people born in 1960 and later. But of all the options to shore up Social Security's finances, that ranks as one of the most unpopular, pollsters say. In a New York Times/CBS News Poll earlier this year, nearly 8 out of 10 respondents said they would oppose raising the age when people are eligible for Social Security benefits.
Political strategists say this issue is viewed very differently by policy experts, who may see nothing wrong with working longer, and average Americans, with jobs that may be uninteresting, stressful or physically demanding, who are often eager to retire and doubtful of their employment prospects in their mid-to-late 60's....
Kathianne said:Got to hand it to the NYTimes, some of their headlines are the best.'
Merlin1047 said:The cure to social security is simple - do away with the idiotic retirement benefits our overpaid senators and representatives have voted for themselves. Put them under social security same as the rest of us. Bet the system gets fixed in no time.
