CDZ Thinking about retirement and retirement age(s)

[usmbguest5318]

Thread Rubric:

As one is dying from the day one is born, similarly, many people, from the moment they commence their careers, find themselves working toward the day they retire from the workforce. I find that to be a somewhat odd notion for among the people in my family and social cohort, while retiring from a given job happens, retiring such that one no longer performs work for which they receive compensation is not something folks much do before sometime in their eighties.

Indeed, some like a close friend's father don't retire until well after the age when most folks think they should be retired. Plenty of notable figures work well past seventy years-old, and by outward appearances, generally, money isn't a primary driver to their doing so. For example:

• Carl Bernstein (73)
• Jane Fonda (80)
• Lily Tomlin (78)
• Myriad members of Congress, both now and in the past
• Pat Buchanan (79)
• Carmen Dell'Orefice (86)
• Jack Nicholson (80)
• Several CEOs
• God only knows how many successful business owners

I suppose my own circumstances will evolve similarly to my father's and others in my social cohort insofar as I cannot imagine doing anything that isn't accompanied by a large degree of decision-making discretion for I'm not a person suited to asking "how high" when someone to me says "jump." Dad worked until he was "retirement age" and, after about a year of two of having no more work to do than piddling around the house and such, transformed what had merely been an investing activity into a thriving business. He worked at that for some 20 more years before finally deciding to become fully retired. I know the only reason he worked for another 20 years was that he was bored not working and Momma was tired of his having no work to do. [1] His returning to the workforce, so to speak, resolved problems they both were having in the wake of his first retirement.

​

Thread Questions:

• Why do you think so many Americans predispose themselves to the notion of retiring as early in life as it seems they do?
• What would you think of the government increasing the "full benefit" age for Social Security to 75?
  • What We Can Learn From Norway About Retirement
    
  • National insurance retirement pensions
    
  • Which are the best countries in the world to grow old in?

Note:

1. Anecdote about one of the most hilarious conversations I've ever had with my mother:
   Momma was glad he took up a new career. Before he'd done so, she called halfway round the planet to solicit for my input and help finding something for Dad to do, and upon my return persuading him to do it, lest he make her balmy and drive her to bedlam. I told her to try lube and Viagra. She said they'd already been down that road. LOL It was then that I realized karma is real. LOL

 

[OldLady]

I think 75 is way too old for full retirement. As you pointed out, people who still have a lot of energy and wish to do something that brings in a paycheck, will do something else they enjoy, maybe just part-time or on a more flexible basis.
A lot of people have pretty much worn out their bodies by 65; I HATE seeing them working as greeters at Walmart. Poor old souls.

It is true, though, that with better healthcare and diet, people are healthier at 65 than they used to be. If we had to push it to 67 or 68, people could probably deal. For the people who have hated their jobs all their lives, they are NOT going to drive their wives crazy--they'll be fishing or fiddling around in the garage with their car or hanging out at the local diner drinking coffee. Having FUN.

 

[alang1216]

Thread Questions:

• Why do you think so many Americans predispose themselves to the notion of retiring as early in life as it seems they do?
• What would you think of the government increasing the "full benefit" age for Social Security to 75?
  • What We Can Learn From Norway About Retirement
    
  • National insurance retirement pensions
    
  • Which are the best countries in the world to grow old in?

I think the majority of people have jobs. You do a job for money not for the enjoyment or satisfaction it gives you. Most jobs are mindbogglingly dull and once you realize that is going to be your future for the next 20 or so years you start the countdown to retirement.

I've been luckier than most. I had a job I loved and got to be the first to learn new technology. I eventually retired and received a pension (anyone remember those?) big enough to live on but went right back to work elsewhere, again doing work I enjoy with zero pressure at a client site. In fact I've never met my boss or anyone else in the company. I don't need SS so they can do whatever with it.

I get a pension and health care through my old employer and it works great for me but I think this is terrible in general. I think we need a national pension and healthcare system that is MANDATORY since we are too irresponsible to make our own decisions. (A friend runs a company that provides IRS plans to small businesses and when the plan was optional 35% of the workers didn't opt in and left the employers contribution on the table! Free money!)

 

[Tax Man]

I started to work at 12 years old. Been working ever since. About 8 years ago I got hurt at work, self employed, and can not work anymore. Cannot sit for any length of time or stand or walk more than 100 steps<approx> .

 

[usmbguest5318]

Thread Questions:

• Why do you think so many Americans predispose themselves to the notion of retiring as early in life as it seems they do?
• What would you think of the government increasing the "full benefit" age for Social Security to 75?
  • What We Can Learn From Norway About Retirement
    
  • National insurance retirement pensions
    
  • Which are the best countries in the world to grow old in?

I think the majority of people have jobs. You do a job for money not for the enjoyment or satisfaction it gives you. Most jobs are mindbogglingly dull and once you realize that is going to be your future for the next 20 or so years you start the countdown to retirement.

I've been luckier than most. I had a job I loved and got to be the first to learn new technology. I eventually retired and received a pension (anyone remember those?) big enough to live on but went right back to work elsewhere, again doing work I enjoy with zero pressure at a client site. In fact I've never met my boss or anyone else in the company. I don't need SS so they can do whatever with it.

I get a pension and health care through my old employer and it works great for me but I think this is terrible in general. I think we need a national pension and healthcare system that is MANDATORY since we are too irresponsible to make our own decisions. (A friend runs a company that provides IRS plans to small businesses and when the plan was optional 35% of the workers didn't opt in and left the employers contribution on the table! Free money!)

You do a job for money not for the enjoyment or satisfaction it gives you.

Surely you don't mean that, be it as a blanket statement about me or about people in general? Do you truly think that the money is the reason people undertake the careers they do?

If indeed you do, let me assure you the primary reason I undertook the career I did is because of the intellectual and emotional satisfaction I obtain from solving the kinds of problems I do. Were that not the case, I'd have chosen something else to do, were it to have happened relatively early on, mid-career, or somewhat later, but it would have happened. I'm not the sort of fellow who won't do what I don't want to and enjoy doing, at least not as goes the thing I will do for the majority of my adult life. I like challenges and finding effective and implementable means of overcoming them. The compensation people (firms) are willing to pay me for doing so, or more accurately the extent of it, with regard to their problems is icing on the cake.

Mind you, don't take the above as implying that I had/have but one genre of interests that I may have used as a means for both satisfying my intellectual/emotional interests and curiosities, but also for making a living. As far back as high school I can recall being thoroughly captivated by medicine (biology), engineering, accounting, philosophy, law, history, journalism, acting, architecture, and physics. I'm sure I could have found ways to parlay my interests in those disciplines into sufficiently gainful work so as to provide for myself and my family. I'm suspect I'm far from alone in being curious about and interested in any number of things, and consequently having to come to terms with there being more that one would like to do than one can actually do. I chose to pursue economic and business consulting because that choice at least seemed as though it might at least offer me the opportunity to dabble occasionally in aspects of the various other disciplines that captured my interest. For the most part, it has.

Do some folks get "stuck" having to take a job they don't particularly enjoy? That too absolutely happens. If it happen to the extent you suggest, however, it's no wonder there are so many pissed off folks in the U.S. I too would be pissed off were I stuck doing something solely to collect a paycheck.

Most jobs are mindbogglingly dull

They don't have to be, but to be sure, plenty of jobs are designed so that one can perform it to an employer's satisfaction and do so even if one doesn't care to take initiative and be innovative in one's performance of those jobs. Without question, such jobs when held by thus unmotivated individuals will, to those people and others, be and appear as dull as the day is long.

I recall way back in the earliest days of my career, I'd have to do what we called an "as-is" assessment of the client's operations. In doing so for manufacturing clients, I'd obtain permission to visit the production floors and speak with the workers there. I'd ask each person with whom I spoke the same question: "What do you think needs to be done to improve the way your company does 'this or that.' " Invariably, at least one of the people with whom I spoke suggested something that, upon my further analyzing the merit of it, proved to be an excellent idea for how to improve the operations process.

Those workers later in the project became the named individuals I'd ask the client management to retask to working on the project along with and the rest of the consulting team and other client personnel. It was a win-win situation for me, the project team, the client and the worker. On a handful of occasions, my noting that I got a given idea from a specific worker was "news" to their superiors. One time, the operations VP even said the worker had never shown themselves to be thus insightful and that he was amazed the man had put any thought into what was going on and how the production process functioned and fit together. That statement from the VP created, of course, what we consultants call "YACO," yet another consulting opportunity, a small one, but nonetheless more revenue.

I think we need a national pension and healthcare system that is MANDATORY since we are too irresponsible to make our own decisions.

We do. They're called Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, or collectively, CMS services. In other countries they have different names, but they're all nonetheless a pension and means of making healthcare available to the citizenry.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Involuntarily ending one's revenue generating career isn't exactly what I had in mind when I wrote "retire/retirement." All the same, I appreciate your commenting.

OT:

I started to work at 12 years old. Been working ever since. About 8 years ago I got hurt at work, self employed, and can not work anymore. Cannot sit for any length of time or stand or walk more than 100 steps<approx> .

I'm sorry to learn of your infirmity. Insofar as your mobility is limited, have you considered seeking gainful employment (self or not) as a writer or something else that doesn't call for much mobility such as teaching, software developing, accounting, law, artist, and a host of other things?

• FDR ran the country from a wheelchair.
• Charles Krauthammer writes for a living.
• Stephen Hawking has made all sorts of accomplishments and is well paid, and that man has some serious physical disabilities.
• Ralph Braun was born with muscular dystrophy yet founded the Braun corporation.

In the Information Age, one need not let limited physical mobility be a reason not to work. If one can use a keyboard and microphone, it's possible to find a way to situation one with a keyboard and microphone in a way that one can comfortably use them. As with all things in business, where there's a will, there's a way, for as Donald Trump has shown, one need only be good at one thing in order to be successful.​

 

[alang1216]

Thread Questions:

• Why do you think so many Americans predispose themselves to the notion of retiring as early in life as it seems they do?
• What would you think of the government increasing the "full benefit" age for Social Security to 75?
  • What We Can Learn From Norway About Retirement
    
  • National insurance retirement pensions
    
  • Which are the best countries in the world to grow old in?

I think the majority of people have jobs. You do a job for money not for the enjoyment or satisfaction it gives you. Most jobs are mindbogglingly dull and once you realize that is going to be your future for the next 20 or so years you start the countdown to retirement.

I've been luckier than most. I had a job I loved and got to be the first to learn new technology. I eventually retired and received a pension (anyone remember those?) big enough to live on but went right back to work elsewhere, again doing work I enjoy with zero pressure at a client site. In fact I've never met my boss or anyone else in the company. I don't need SS so they can do whatever with it.

I get a pension and health care through my old employer and it works great for me but I think this is terrible in general. I think we need a national pension and healthcare system that is MANDATORY since we are too irresponsible to make our own decisions. (A friend runs a company that provides IRS plans to small businesses and when the plan was optional 35% of the workers didn't opt in and left the employers contribution on the table! Free money!)

You do a job for money not for the enjoyment or satisfaction it gives you.

Surely you don't mean that, be it as a blanket statement about me or about people in general? Do you truly think that the money is the reason people undertake the careers they do?

If indeed you do, let me assure you the primary reason I undertook the career I did is because of the intellectual and emotional satisfaction I obtain from solving the kinds of problems I do. Were that not the case, I'd have chosen something else to do, were it to have happened relatively early on, mid-career, or somewhat later, but it would have happened. I'm not the sort of fellow who won't do what I don't want to and enjoy doing, at least not as goes the thing I will do for the majority of my adult life. I like challenges and finding effective and implementable means of overcoming them. The compensation people (firms) are willing to pay me for doing so, or more accurately the extent of it, with regard to their problems is icing on the cake.

Mind you, don't take the above as implying that I had/have but one genre of interests that I may have used as a means for both satisfying my intellectual/emotional interests and curiosities, but also for making a living. As far back as high school I can recall being thoroughly captivated by medicine (biology), engineering, accounting, philosophy, law, history, journalism, acting, architecture, and physics. I'm sure I could have found ways to parlay my interests in those disciplines into sufficiently gainful work so as to provide for myself and my family. I'm suspect I'm far from alone in being curious about and interested in any number of things, and consequently having to come to terms with there being more that one would like to do than one can actually do. I chose to pursue economic and business consulting because that choice at least seemed as though it might at least offer me the opportunity to dabble occasionally in aspects of the various other disciplines that captured my interest. For the most part, it has.

Do some folks get "stuck" having to take a job they don't particularly enjoy? That too absolutely happens. If it happen to the extent you suggest, however, it's no wonder there are so many pissed off folks in the U.S. I too would be pissed off were I stuck doing something solely to collect a paycheck.

Most jobs are mindbogglingly dull

They don't have to be, but to be sure, plenty of jobs are designed so that one can perform it to an employer's satisfaction and do so even if one doesn't care to take initiative and be innovative in one's performance of those jobs. Without question, such jobs when held by thus unmotivated individuals will, to those people and others, be and appear as dull as the day is long.

I recall way back in the earliest days of my career, I'd have to do what we called an "as-is" assessment of the client's operations. In doing so for manufacturing clients, I'd obtain permission to visit the production floors and speak with the workers there. I'd ask each person with whom I spoke the same question: "What do you think needs to be done to improve the way your company does 'this or that.' " Invariably, at least one of the people with whom I spoke suggested something that, upon my further analyzing the merit of it, proved to be an excellent idea for how to improve the operations process.

Those workers later in the project became the named individuals I'd ask the client management to retask to working on the project along with and the rest of the consulting team and other client personnel. It was a win-win situation for me, the project team, the client and the worker. On a handful of occasions, my noting that I got a given idea from a specific worker was "news" to their superiors. One time, the operations VP even said the worker had never shown themselves to be thus insightful and that he was amazed the man had put any thought into what was going on and how the production process functioned and fit together. That statement from the VP created, of course, what we consultants call "YACO," yet another consulting opportunity, a small one, but nonetheless more revenue.

I think we need a national pension and healthcare system that is MANDATORY since we are too irresponsible to make our own decisions.

We do. They're called Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, or collectively, CMS services. In other countries they have different names, but they're all nonetheless a pension and means of making healthcare available to the citizenry.

Careers are not jobs. You choose a career and work to get it, you accept a job that is given to you. Just my definitions of course. Doctors, lawyers, etc. choose careers, retail workers, truck drivers, etc., are given jobs. Does anyone go to school to be a cashier?

Is it even possible to live on SS? Do most people save enough in an IRA to maintain their employed lifestyle indefinitely?

Medicare is only available at 65. What do you do if you're too rich for Medicaid and too young for Medicare.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Is it even possible to live on SS? Do most people save enough in an IRA to maintain their employed lifestyle indefinitely?

I don't know the answers to those questions. I'm sure they have objectively accurate answers.

Medicare is only available at 65. What do you do if you're too rich for Medicaid and too young for Medicare.

How is being too young (and not disabled) for Medicare materially germane in a conversation about retirement? Be that as it may, one does something that allows one to obtain healthcare via means other than Medicare or Medicaid. Do people younger than 65 actually retire (not quit/"go AWOL" or get fired) and not have pretty substantial means at their disposal, substantial enough that the situation you've identified isn't problematic? For those who do and your answer thus be "yes," my gut response is that no system aims or is intended to protect one form one's own imprudence.

I'm one of the people who'll, "officially" and for the first time, retire and be too young for Medicare and too rich for Medicaid, and I have (or at least I don't anticipate having) an infirmity that will allow me to get disability-based access to healthcare. I most certainly will have other means of obtaining healthcare.

Truly, your question strikes me more as one an adolescent would ask in an effort to pose some sort of dilemma, than as one that someone who's duly considered the implications and circumstances attendant to one's being in the situation about which you asked.

 

[yiostheoy]

Thread Rubric:

As one is dying from the day one is born, similarly, many people, from the moment they commence their careers, find themselves working toward the day they retire from the workforce. I find that to be a somewhat odd notion for among the people in my family and social cohort, while retiring from a given job happens, retiring such that one no longer performs work for which they receive compensation is not something folks much do before sometime in their eighties.

Indeed, some like a close friend's father don't retire until well after the age when most folks think they should be retired. Plenty of notable figures work well past seventy years-old, and by outward appearances, generally, money isn't a primary driver to their doing so. For example:

• Carl Bernstein (73)
• Jane Fonda (80)
• Lily Tomlin (78)
• Myriad members of Congress, both now and in the past
• Pat Buchanan (79)
• Carmen Dell'Orefice (86)
• Jack Nicholson (80)
• Several CEOs
• God only knows how many successful business owners

I suppose my own circumstances will evolve similarly to my father's and others in my social cohort insofar as I cannot imagine doing anything that isn't accompanied by a large degree of decision-making discretion for I'm not a person suited to asking "how high" when someone to me says "jump." Dad worked until he was "retirement age" and, after about a year of two of having no more work to do than piddling around the house and such, transformed what had merely been an investing activity into a thriving business. He worked at that for some 20 more years before finally deciding to become fully retired. I know the only reason he worked for another 20 years was that he was bored not working and Momma was tired of his having no work to do. [1] His returning to the workforce, so to speak, resolved problems they both were having in the wake of his first retirement.

​

Thread Questions:

• Why do you think so many Americans predispose themselves to the notion of retiring as early in life as it seems they do?
• What would you think of the government increasing the "full benefit" age for Social Security to 75?
  • What We Can Learn From Norway About Retirement
    
  • National insurance retirement pensions
    
  • Which are the best countries in the world to grow old in?

Note:

1. Anecdote about one of the most hilarious conversations I've ever had with my mother:
   Momma was glad he took up a new career. Before he'd done so, she called halfway round the planet to solicit for my input and help finding something for Dad to do, and upon my return persuading him to do it, lest he make her balmy and drive her to bedlam. I told her to try lube and Viagra. She said they'd already been down that road. LOL It was then that I realized karma is real. LOL

From the age of about 35 onwards you are dying, sure.

But not from your day of birth.

It takes about 25 years to grow up, and then you have 10 years in your prime.

 

[yiostheoy]

Thread Rubric:

As one is dying from the day one is born, similarly, many people, from the moment they commence their careers, find themselves working toward the day they retire from the workforce. I find that to be a somewhat odd notion for among the people in my family and social cohort, while retiring from a given job happens, retiring such that one no longer performs work for which they receive compensation is not something folks much do before sometime in their eighties.

Indeed, some like a close friend's father don't retire until well after the age when most folks think they should be retired. Plenty of notable figures work well past seventy years-old, and by outward appearances, generally, money isn't a primary driver to their doing so. For example:

• Carl Bernstein (73)
• Jane Fonda (80)
• Lily Tomlin (78)
• Myriad members of Congress, both now and in the past
• Pat Buchanan (79)
• Carmen Dell'Orefice (86)
• Jack Nicholson (80)
• Several CEOs
• God only knows how many successful business owners

I suppose my own circumstances will evolve similarly to my father's and others in my social cohort insofar as I cannot imagine doing anything that isn't accompanied by a large degree of decision-making discretion for I'm not a person suited to asking "how high" when someone to me says "jump." Dad worked until he was "retirement age" and, after about a year of two of having no more work to do than piddling around the house and such, transformed what had merely been an investing activity into a thriving business. He worked at that for some 20 more years before finally deciding to become fully retired. I know the only reason he worked for another 20 years was that he was bored not working and Momma was tired of his having no work to do. [1] His returning to the workforce, so to speak, resolved problems they both were having in the wake of his first retirement.

​

Thread Questions:

• Why do you think so many Americans predispose themselves to the notion of retiring as early in life as it seems they do?
• What would you think of the government increasing the "full benefit" age for Social Security to 75?
  • What We Can Learn From Norway About Retirement
    
  • National insurance retirement pensions
    
  • Which are the best countries in the world to grow old in?

Note:

1. Anecdote about one of the most hilarious conversations I've ever had with my mother:
   Momma was glad he took up a new career. Before he'd done so, she called halfway round the planet to solicit for my input and help finding something for Dad to do, and upon my return persuading him to do it, lest he make her balmy and drive her to bedlam. I told her to try lube and Viagra. She said they'd already been down that road. LOL It was then that I realized karma is real. LOL

Retirement per se is self imposed unemployment.

This is not a good thing.

Everyone should work until they are too infirm to do anything.

PBS featured a lady who was 100 and still working in a sewing factory.

 

[yiostheoy]

Ruth Bader Ginsberg is a feminist communist activist who will die in her seat on the bench, unfortunately. Any day now she will start drooling.

 

[RetiredGySgt]

I was a Marine I chose to be a Marine, in fact I had to fight to get in. I was involuntarily retired due to medical reasons at 16 years. Still wish I had finished my career.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Thread Rubric:

As one is dying from the day one is born, similarly, many people, from the moment they commence their careers, find themselves working toward the day they retire from the workforce. I find that to be a somewhat odd notion for among the people in my family and social cohort, while retiring from a given job happens, retiring such that one no longer performs work for which they receive compensation is not something folks much do before sometime in their eighties.

Indeed, some like a close friend's father don't retire until well after the age when most folks think they should be retired. Plenty of notable figures work well past seventy years-old, and by outward appearances, generally, money isn't a primary driver to their doing so. For example:

• Carl Bernstein (73)
• Jane Fonda (80)
• Lily Tomlin (78)
• Myriad members of Congress, both now and in the past
• Pat Buchanan (79)
• Carmen Dell'Orefice (86)
• Jack Nicholson (80)
• Several CEOs
• God only knows how many successful business owners

I suppose my own circumstances will evolve similarly to my father's and others in my social cohort insofar as I cannot imagine doing anything that isn't accompanied by a large degree of decision-making discretion for I'm not a person suited to asking "how high" when someone to me says "jump." Dad worked until he was "retirement age" and, after about a year of two of having no more work to do than piddling around the house and such, transformed what had merely been an investing activity into a thriving business. He worked at that for some 20 more years before finally deciding to become fully retired. I know the only reason he worked for another 20 years was that he was bored not working and Momma was tired of his having no work to do. [1] His returning to the workforce, so to speak, resolved problems they both were having in the wake of his first retirement.

​

Thread Questions:

• Why do you think so many Americans predispose themselves to the notion of retiring as early in life as it seems they do?
• What would you think of the government increasing the "full benefit" age for Social Security to 75?
  • What We Can Learn From Norway About Retirement
    
  • National insurance retirement pensions
    
  • Which are the best countries in the world to grow old in?

Note:

1. Anecdote about one of the most hilarious conversations I've ever had with my mother:
   Momma was glad he took up a new career. Before he'd done so, she called halfway round the planet to solicit for my input and help finding something for Dad to do, and upon my return persuading him to do it, lest he make her balmy and drive her to bedlam. I told her to try lube and Viagra. She said they'd already been down that road. LOL It was then that I realized karma is real. LOL

From the age of about 35 onwards you are dying, sure.

But not from your day of birth.

It takes about 25 years to grow up, and then you have 10 years in your prime.

 

[usmbguest5318]

I was a Marine I chose to be a Marine, in fact I had to fight to get in. I was involuntarily retired due to medical reasons at 16 years. Still wish I had finished my career.

TY for your service.

 

[alang1216]

Medicare is only available at 65. What do you do if you're too rich for Medicaid and too young for Medicare.

How is being too young (and not disabled) for Medicare materially germane in a conversation about retirement? Be that as it may, one does something that allows one to obtain healthcare via means other than Medicare or Medicaid. Do people younger than 65 actually retire (not quit/"go AWOL" or get fired) and not have pretty substantial means at their disposal, substantial enough that the situation you've identified isn't problematic? For those who do and your answer thus be "yes," my gut response is that no system aims or is intended to protect one form one's own imprudence.

I'm one of the people who'll, "officially" and for the first time, retire and be too young for Medicare and too rich for Medicaid, and I have (or at least I don't anticipate having) an infirmity that will allow me to get disability-based access to healthcare. I most certainly will have other means of obtaining healthcare.

Truly, your question strikes me more as one an adolescent would ask in an effort to pose some sort of dilemma, than as one that someone who's duly considered the implications and circumstances attendant to one's being in the situation about which you asked.

Some may wish to work past 65 but certainly not all. My wife works part time and gets no health benefits. She is covered under my plan but not everyone is so lucky. I'm sure there are many who wish to retire or switch to temp or part time work, maybe to care for an aging parent, but have to wait until they're 65 as health insurance becomes ever more affordable.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Medicare is only available at 65. What do you do if you're too rich for Medicaid and too young for Medicare.

How is being too young (and not disabled) for Medicare materially germane in a conversation about retirement? Be that as it may, one does something that allows one to obtain healthcare via means other than Medicare or Medicaid. Do people younger than 65 actually retire (not quit/"go AWOL" or get fired) and not have pretty substantial means at their disposal, substantial enough that the situation you've identified isn't problematic? For those who do and your answer thus be "yes," my gut response is that no system aims or is intended to protect one form one's own imprudence.

I'm one of the people who'll, "officially" and for the first time, retire and be too young for Medicare and too rich for Medicaid, and I have (or at least I don't anticipate having) an infirmity that will allow me to get disability-based access to healthcare. I most certainly will have other means of obtaining healthcare.

Truly, your question strikes me more as one an adolescent would ask in an effort to pose some sort of dilemma, than as one that someone who's duly considered the implications and circumstances attendant to one's being in the situation about which you asked.

Some may wish to work past 65 but certainly not all. My wife works part time and gets no health benefits. She is covered under my plan but not everyone is so lucky. I'm sure there are many who wish to retire or switch to temp or part time work, maybe to care for an aging parent, but have to wait until they're 65 as health insurance becomes ever more affordable.

??? What does "wishing to work" or wishing to retire have to do with the dilemma about which you asked? You didn't ask about what folks are to do in response to what they wish they could do; you asked what is one to do upon finding themselves in the specific situation you described.

Medicare is only available at 65. What do you do if you're too rich for Medicaid and too young for Medicare.

That is what I responded to. I don't have a damn thing to say about what folks are to do if they wish to retire at any age. Why would anyone have something to say about such an indefinite thing as what folks wish for.

If you want to discuss what unspecified folks wish to do, I suggest consulting someone who has a magical crystal ball, Peter Pan, Tinkerbell, or even Glinda the Good Witch, somebody, but not me.

Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow, and fantasy.
-- Walt Disney Company​

 

[SeaGal]

Thread Questions:

• Why do you think so many Americans predispose themselves to the notion of retiring as early in life as it seems they do?
• What would you think of the government increasing the "full benefit" age for Social Security to 75?
  • What We Can Learn From Norway About Retirement
    
  • National insurance retirement pensions
    
  • Which are the best countries in the world to grow old in?

From the first article...

'Their research also shows how older workers prefer part-time work. They found the prevalence of part-time bridge employment to retirement was highest among those age 71 to 81 —52% of men and 64% of women that age. The lowest percentage of part-timers was among younger boomers, age 59 to 64 — 26% of men and 39% of women.

In other words, stop thinking that working older Americans are the exception. They’re the new normal.'

This would contradict the assertion that most Americans 'fully' retire early in life. Both mr sg and I continued working part-time after retirement in a field related to our careers - until his health necessitated full retirement. Both of my parents worked part-time jobs long after retirement, my mother until her early 80's....their part-time jobs were not related to their careers, but were something they both enjoyed doing.

As to Social Security benefits - 62 is young by todays standards. We have a higher percentage of the population who lives well beyond the age of 65 than during the mid-1930's. It seems reasonable to raise the minimum age, and to continue to incrementally raise the 'full benefits' age... but 75 is too high.

I agree, as per the first article - the penalty for earning income (W-2's) while receiving SS benefits should be eliminated...or at least raise the bar to earnings greater than 100,000 (as an example) including income from pensions, royalties, dividends, 1099's, etc...income sources other than W-2's.

The downside to having an actively employed older generation might be a negative impact on entry job availability for the younger generations.

Most of the boomer generation, as well as the previous generations, will live to receive far more in SS benefits than they paid in. That might present a problem on SS sustainability for future generations. Changes should be made carefully and incrementally. It isn't the fault of those who played by the rules that the government over-promised.

 

[usmbguest5318]

Thread Questions:

• Why do you think so many Americans predispose themselves to the notion of retiring as early in life as it seems they do?
• What would you think of the government increasing the "full benefit" age for Social Security to 75?
  • What We Can Learn From Norway About Retirement
    
  • National insurance retirement pensions
    
  • Which are the best countries in the world to grow old in?

From the first article...

'Their research also shows how older workers prefer part-time work. They found the prevalence of part-time bridge employment to retirement was highest among those age 71 to 81 —52% of men and 64% of women that age. The lowest percentage of part-timers was among younger boomers, age 59 to 64 — 26% of men and 39% of women.

In other words, stop thinking that working older Americans are the exception. They’re the new normal.'

This would contradict the assertion that most Americans 'fully' retire early in life. Both mr sg and I continued working part-time after retirement in a field related to our careers - until his health necessitated full retirement. Both of my parents worked part-time jobs long after retirement, my mother until her early 80's....their part-time jobs were not related to their careers, but were something they both enjoyed doing.

As to Social Security benefits - 62 is young by todays standards. We have a higher percentage of the population who lives well beyond the age of 65 than during the mid-1930's. It seems reasonable to raise the minimum age, and to continue to incrementally raise the 'full benefits' age... but 75 is too high.

I agree, as per the first article - the penalty for earning income (W-2's) while receiving SS benefits should be eliminated...or at least raise the bar to earnings greater than 100,000 (as an example) including income from pensions, royalties, dividends, 1099's, etc...income sources other than W-2's.

The downside to having an actively employed older generation might be a negative impact on entry job availability for the younger generations.

Most of the boomer generation, as well as the previous generations, will live to receive far more in SS benefits than they paid in. That might present a problem on SS sustainability for future generations. Changes should be made carefully and incrementally. It isn't the fault of those who played by the rules that the government over-promised.

I haven't yet formed an POV on the specifics of your remarks/ideas, but I appreciate your posting a thoughtful set of comments that aren't loaded with a bunch of sophistry and wild conjecture. That's pretty uncommon here, so I feel obliged to acknowledge your having done so.

 

[Toronado3800]

Thread Rubric:

As one is dying from the day one is born, similarly, many people, from the moment they commence their careers, find themselves working toward the day they retire from the workforce. I find that to be a somewhat odd notion for among the people in my family and social cohort, while retiring from a given job happens, retiring such that one no longer performs work for which they receive compensation is not something folks much do before sometime in their eighties.

Indeed, some like a close friend's father don't retire until well after the age when most folks think they should be retired. Plenty of notable figures work well past seventy years-old, and by outward appearances, generally, money isn't a primary driver to their doing so. For example:

• Carl Bernstein (73)
• Jane Fonda (80)
• Lily Tomlin (78)
• Myriad members of Congress, both now and in the past
• Pat Buchanan (79)
• Carmen Dell'Orefice (86)
• Jack Nicholson (80)
• Several CEOs
• God only knows how many successful business owners

I suppose my own circumstances will evolve similarly to my father's and others in my social cohort insofar as I cannot imagine doing anything that isn't accompanied by a large degree of decision-making discretion for I'm not a person suited to asking "how high" when someone to me says "jump." Dad worked until he was "retirement age" and, after about a year of two of having no more work to do than piddling around the house and such, transformed what had merely been an investing activity into a thriving business. He worked at that for some 20 more years before finally deciding to become fully retired. I know the only reason he worked for another 20 years was that he was bored not working and Momma was tired of his having no work to do. [1] His returning to the workforce, so to speak, resolved problems they both were having in the wake of his first retirement.

​

Thread Questions:

• Why do you think so many Americans predispose themselves to the notion of retiring as early in life as it seems they do?
• What would you think of the government increasing the "full benefit" age for Social Security to 75?
  • What We Can Learn From Norway About Retirement
    
  • National insurance retirement pensions
    
  • Which are the best countries in the world to grow old in?

Note:

1. Anecdote about one of the most hilarious conversations I've ever had with my mother:
   Momma was glad he took up a new career. Before he'd done so, she called halfway round the planet to solicit for my input and help finding something for Dad to do, and upon my return persuading him to do it, lest he make her balmy and drive her to bedlam. I told her to try lube and Viagra. She said they'd already been down that road. LOL It was then that I realized karma is real. LOL

Some people get slapped pretty hard by disease or some infirmity so I assume we are leaving them out of the main topic but I agree its best for everyone to find a purpose.

-Your point is well made and I agree. My elders who are still working or volunteering part time in their 70's are considerably more happy than those who are not. In general I don't think full time 40 hour a week work is in their best interest but to each their own if they desire.

-It is time we change the Social Security math again and if it makes it easier for a 70 year old to work part time and draw their SS that is fine with me.

-How hard do we want to encourage companies to provide reasonable pensions? This is a scary age of competing globally with countries Trump would probably call a **** **** but none the less we do need to be careful not to encourage those with no feelings or ties to America to build their factories overseas. Through tax breaks is my first idea.

-Something culturally should change. Consider my bad brother in law. A few years back I encouraged the man to learn to type so he could do something besides manual labor. The man is a horse still and just can't see living past when he can't pick up wheels and tires for a living. Not that I don't sneak away from my monitors to help unload trucks whenever I can, it still feels good. I just worry about when his back gives out or something and I feel a certain amount of worship for Archie Bunker and against fuzzy math, to explain myself poorly.

 

[MarathonMike]

I can only speak for myself and why I "retired" before official SS retirement age. I quoted retired because I have the option to return to my profession as either a part-time or full-time consultant which at this point is a coin toss. Right now I'm kind of leaning toward not returning, but that could change.

I view retirement as true freedom from a scheduled life. I am totally enjoying waking up and doing or not doing whatever I want. I have always had a lot of different interests including running, golf and music so I am not the typical retired engineer who is suddenly bored with too much time on his hands.

And if I needed any more motivation to retire 'early', a friend and fellow runner and engineer died of prostate cancer 3 WEEKS before his official retirement date. That pretty much sealed my decision for me. I was not going to die without ever seeing life beyond my office cubicle.