Sure... someday people may live longer.. but right now, in the US at least.. people alive now.. are certainly NOT living longer.. Many are dying in their 60s.. Meanwhile politicians keep wanting to push back the retirement age to older and older, an age most people will never even live to.
Not most - some will not make it to the new retirement age.
Social Security wasn’t ever set up properly. Combine the bad design with politicians buying votes with added benefits and the add to this the refusal of younger generations to produce children and the result is a SS system that will run out of money to pay for benefits.
Sadly, in my experience among my social circles, a good half of the people I know are losing their parents in their 50s and 60s. A few years back, thought it was a fluke that some of my friends were losing parents at a seemingly higher rate than what we'd hope.. But then I lost my step-father, and then biological father, within the span of a few months to fluke heart issues, and they were both below 60.
At this point, it just seems like a fact to me, that the life-expectancy for average people is terrible right now, so raising the retirement age is like a cruel joke to most of us. Wealthy people are doing great, but for everyone else who'd actually need it, not so much..
Also, from the analyses I've seen, SS isn't actually under any serious threat of running out any time soon, certain interests just love to frame the narrative that way. There's plenty that could be done to adjust things. And if there's less young people, then there'll eventually be less old people that'll need it too, especially if we figure out a way to get more people better off.
Either way, obtaining a better system requires figuring that out in advance, no way to end the current SS system till we do. I'd suggest something along the lines of an unconditional basic income, funded through taxes on automation or any number of better tax systems that have been proposed, but most people don't yet see the need for that level of change. lol Give it time, with the way AI has been going lately.
Sure... someday people may live longer.. but right now, in the US at least.. people alive now.. are certainly NOT living longer.. Many are dying in their 60s.. Meanwhile politicians keep wanting to push back the retirement age to older and older, an age most people will never even live to.
Not most - some will not make it to the new retirement age.
Social Security wasn’t ever set up properly. Combine the bad design with politicians buying votes with added benefits and the add to this the refusal of younger generations to produce children and the result is a SS system that will run out of money to pay for benefits.
Sadly, in my experience among my social circles, a good half of the people I know are losing their parents in their 50s and 60s. A few years back, thought it was a fluke that some of my friends were losing parents at a seemingly higher rate than what we'd hope.. But then I lost my step-father, and then biological father, within the span of a few months to fluke heart issues, and they were both below 60.
At this point, it just seems like a fact to me, that the life-expectancy for average people is terrible right now, so raising the retirement age is like a cruel joke to most of us. Wealthy people are doing great, but for everyone else who'd actually need it, not so much..
Also, from the analyses I've seen, SS isn't actually under any serious threat of running out any time soon, certain interests just love to frame the narrative that way. There's plenty that could be done to adjust things. And if there's less young people, then there'll eventually be less old people that'll need it too, especially if we figure out a way to get more people better off.
Either way, obtaining a better system requires figuring that out in advance, no way to end the current SS system till we do. I'd suggest something along the lines of an unconditional basic income, funded through taxes on automation or any number of better tax systems that have been proposed, but most people don't yet see the need for that level of change. lol Give it time, with the way AI has been going lately.