[quote=Eugene]They are considering raising the official retirement age to 75 or so, because there aren’t not enough working age people today and there will be even fewer in a few decades – current projections are that, by 2050, 50% of Japanese population will be over 55.
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If we raised our “retirement” age to 70, we would no longer have a funding problem with either SS or Medicare, even given declining birth rates. That five year gap – 65 to 70 – puts a funding gap of tens of trillions of dollars in the numbers. When SS came into existence in 1935 the average US Citizen lived to be 65. That’s why they chose 65 as the age at which you’d start receiving benefits. This number has stayed the same since, despite the fact that the average US citizen now lives to 74. The root of our problem ain’t rocket surgery. It’s just that the AARP just won’t freakin’ budge on this issue, despite the impossibility of the math working out.
