Senator Dianne Feinstein appeared confused during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday. When asked to vote on a proposal, Feinstein began giving a lengthy speech instead of simply saying “aye” or “nay” as requested. The committee chair, Senator Patty Murray, had to repeatedly tell Feinstein “just say aye” and remind her that it was time for a vote, not speeches. After some delay, Feinstein finally cast her vote. A spokesperson said Feinstein was preoccupied and did not realize a vote had been called. The incident raises further concerns about Feinstein’s ability to serve at age 90, as she has made other recent mistakes and often relies on aides.
I think that would just result in an even bigger push by right-wing politicians to move the retirement age even higher.
Better would be to tie it to the average life expectancy, updated with each census.
Why should we be punished if life expectancy goes up? Nobody should have to work until they’re too old to fully enjoy life.
That’s literally the opposite of what I said
That’s how I interpreted it too. Just because we’re living longer doesn’t mean our capacity for work is stretching further. My knees are already going out and I’m not near retirement age. I don’t want to be stuck working longer, hating every moment of it, knowing that all this means is now I won’t actually get to enjoy retirement
To play devil’s advocate, when Social Security was established (bringing with it the concept of a “retirement age”), the age of eligibility was deliberately set such that less than half of Americans would live long enough to draw on it. The clear expectation was that you would work until you couldn’t anymore.
That said, in an era when changes in life expectancy are starting to take on a K-shaped distribution and labor force participation has been on a long steady decline, tying governmental income support to age and employment duration is becoming distributionally regressive. I’d much rather have some sort of UBI system that everyone can benefit from.
Average life expectency goes up over time due to advancements in healthcare. Tying the retirement age to the average life expectency is effectively raising the retirement age.
It’s actually going down in the US. And again, I said tie the office age limits to life expectancy, not retirement age.
Can you please explain the difference between office age limits and retirement age?
Oh sure! So “retirement age” means the age at which the general population is eligible for certain benefits like tax-deferred account withdraw without penalty, social security benefits, Medicare, etc. Politicians generally go WAY past this age, well beyond cognitive decline, because they do not want to lose power.
Office age limits are (and should continue to be) unrelated to retirement age; otherwise it creates an incentive for politicians to RAISE the retirement age even further so that they can stay in office. Republicans already try often to increase the retirement age so that people will be stuck working until they die.
Oh, that kind of office.
But just because you are alive doesn’t mean you are useful as a worker or shouldn’t retire. If we tied retirement with us life expectancy minus 10 years then retirement would be 67. But in the future if people live until 90, 80 is not a good retirement age. They wouldn’t be able to carry out a lot of the tasks required.
I’m not a fan of this. Moving the retirement age to life expectancy would mean that you only get to retire if you live beyond your expiration date.
I think they mean “average life expectancy minus n years” where n is fixed at 15, or whatever. But I disagree with this too. If you work 40 years, you deserve to retire in comfort. If a billionaire needs to have one fewer boats to help cover the cost boohoo to them and their other 5 boats.
I think Kerrigor meant that requiring politicians retire at the age of retirement would cause a push for retirement age to get bumped higher, and that it would be better for the maximum age for a politician to be tied to the average life expectancy (e.g. no more than 10 years younger than the average life expectancy, or some such).
Yep precisely! Sorry, I phrased it poorly. But this is exactly what I meant. If politicians are required to resign at retirement age, it creates a perverse incentive for them to RAISE the retirement age - which would be bad.
If it is tied to life expectancy minus ten years, then it is based on data that adjusts automatically, and it’s less about age itself, more about average life expectancy remaining.
All this talk about “life expectancy” tied to retirement. Am I the only one around here that’s blue collar tradesman that’s gonna die in there 60’s? How is 67 a reasonable retirement age?
This would also incentivise politicians to try and increase average life expectancy, which is probably most easily accomplished with universal healthcare. So that would be a win as well
To be fair, the user you replied to suggested it be tied to life expectancy, not set exactly at it. Things like “set it at life expectancy minus x years” or “life expectancy times x”, where x is some value less than one like 0.8 or something, would be situations where the retirement age is tied to life expectancy but where one doesn’t have to live longer than expected to get one.
Problem with all of this is, life expectancy is going down, and we know they’re not just going to kindly lower it to accommodate us. Look at what happened in France this year just to keep it at the same age
You’re probably right. And it’s not like any of them will ever vote for term limits. Our political system is a joke.
Make them use the same type of insurance coverage and healthcare most Americans get and the problem will sort itself out.
If we were serious about having an actual impact on climate change, we should be talking about how long it is actually fair or reasonable for any human being to live.
Are you suggesting we withhold medical treatment from people past a certain age?
Oh no, that would be cruel. I’m suggesting a madatory retirement age of 40, and mandatory painless death at 65. What good do we contribute to the world beyond this time? We just become a drain and a nuisance to society in every way. We hold back progress, we are a danger on the roads and basically just suck up resources to live a miserable and largely unenjoyable life until we die at an artificially inflated age far past our usefulness.
It’s really not sustainable to keep people living this long. It’s super fucked up. I’d rather be eaten by a bear.
Do you know any old people? Lots of them still have joyful and valuable lives. Also, quit talking about people in terms of “usefulness”. Sick people aren’t “useful”, disabled people aren’t “useful”, but they most certainly have a fucking right to live.
I agree that artificially keeping a person alive while they no longer have any joy or value in their lives might be wrong, but this is a very difficult assertion to make and is certainty a lot more complex than your “just kill everyone at 65”.
Also, the problem is not population, it’s how consumer focused our society is, constantly throwing away sustainable and ecological solutions for the sake of more profit.