I was involuntarily ‘early retired’ at age 59. That was 11 years ago. Despite making necessary withdrawals from our retirement funds we now have more in our nest egg than when our ‘retirement’ began (not adjusted for inflation).
Social Security and part time employment have helped a lot.
My wife quit her retail sales job over a year ago. She decided it was too stressful to continue.
Last summer she fell on the pickleball court and shattered her femur. She is 90 percent recovered now, walking unaided.
I still work part time as a cashier and stocker at our local grocery store. The people interaction and activity are good for me. I want to keep doing this as long as possible but I also don’t want my final ‘check out’ to be at the store.
EDIT: I believe Ben Shapiro does not believe in forced retirement age. If so, I agree with that.
No, he is wrong; retirement is not inherently wrong
(although, retiring on someone else's dime via government largesse* is a horrible idea)
*on a related subject, the answer to the woes of the Social Security Ponzi scheme is not to raise the retirement age. the answer is to maintain as is for older earners and current recipients while weaning the govt out of this failing tool of political manipulation by converting to individually owned accounts for younger earners
My work life began at the age of 16 and ended in 2024 at the age of 76. I was concerned about retiring because I was worried I would be bored and aimless. Not at all. My health is great. I’m far from wealthy but money isn’t a problem. I live alone but close to my son and grands and enjoy every moment of every day. I’m never bored but I live life at my own pace. I consider myself quite fortunate to have a healthy, happy and rewarding retirement. One of the lucky ones I guess🙂
If you love your job and you can still do it keep working. That is simply not the case for most people. The physical demands of work take their toll on many. Limited vacation time is a true curse. Finally, who you work for matters. Terrible leaders outnumber the good ones ten to one.
Change the formula for how long you must work to collect Soc Sec and divorce it from age. Why do people die after retirement? Because they were half dead when they retired.
Hi, everyone. Wish me "happy birthday". In a few days, on the 20th, I will turn 65. What a tragedy it is how loaded this number has become.
You can't blame the congressional staffers who in 1935 came up with this age for eligibility to begin for the new Social Security program they were creating to provide workers insurance against outliving their ability to work. With U.S. life expectancy in that year being 61.7 years, not only would many be dead before 65, certainly many of those who survived to that age would have outlived their ability to work to support themselves.
The thing about insurance however, is that it really only works when the covered risk has a low likelihood of occurring. This is why a healthy 30 year old non smoker can buy a 20 year $500,000 term life insurance policy for $50 dollars a month, while the same healthy non smoker would pay over $1,000 a month for a 10 year $25,000 policy once he's 64 (it's also why there's really no such thing as "dental insurance").
So, at it's outset, Social Security could fairly have been referred to as insurance, since it covered the risk of living past 65 when the life expectancy was less than 62. Fast forward 90 years and U.S. life expectancy is now 78. For a Majority of Americans, living past 65 has a high likelihood of occurring.
The fact that the Social Security Trust Fund (the fund where taxes collected exceeding benefits payed accumulated) has been declining since 2010 and is projected to run out in 2033 allows only one conclusion, what started as insurance and came to be mistaken for investment, is now effectively a Ponzi scheme.
We waited until 1983 to slowly start raising the "full retirement" age and then only to 67. Still today, ask any random person "what's retirement age?", and the most common answer will be 65.
And expectation is a powerful thing. Too many see themselves as done at 65. When I mention my upcoming birthday I am sometimes asked, "are you retiring?" I have to laugh.
I mostly disagree. The majority of jobs suck, that's why they pay you to do them. This idea that you can just pick an enjoyable, fulfilling job is unrealistic and the reason people get bitter. It is like eating your vegetables. You just have to do it so your life is just miserable.
I don't think retirement makes a ton of sense but I also think we need to look into more vacation days, possibly shorten the work day too.
We shouldn't start living when we are 65, we should space it out through our life.
And if it wasn't such a horrible grind the whole way, we wouldn't desperately need the rest in the first place. Rest here being both mental and physical.
I turned 65 in April. I have been working since I was 12. I love work. I have worked my way up, literally, from the corporate supply room to be CEO of two companies employing around 100 people today. I have done so many things in my life that I have a myriad of skills... including construction, cabinet making, chef, plumbing, electrical, computers and software development, graphic design, accounting, project management, etc. I have an unfortunate health issue that I am fighting but telling my board of directors at both companies that I plan to keep going until I am 70 or more... as long as I am confident that I can do the job 100%. My biggest fear from my health issue is not dying young but not being able to work.
When Social Security was implemented the average life expectancy of males was 65 and for females it was 67. The retirement age was set at 65. The entire basis for SS was to provide the wife some end-of-life benefits after the husband passed while on the job.
Today I am surround by neighbors that retired from the government jobs in their 50s. They live of a fat pension and their healthcare benefits paid for life. In CA where I live, if you don't have a government pension you need $3 million or more in the bank to retire at 67 and have a reasonable life. Retiring earlier requires more in the bank. Basically, early retirement is something that requires high wealth. My retired government job neighbors are multimillionaires funded by my high state taxes and they don't even know it.
The average person was expected to work for most of their living life. Not only was this financially required for the entirety of society to work, but it has also satisfied the human psychological need of having meaning and purpose.
But, somewhere along the path to being a well-functioning human this was corrupted. Today average people believe they are entitled to retirement. Life expectancy has shot up to the high 80s, and so retiring at 65 means 20-25 years of non-work time to the end of a life.
But even that is not enough... there are memes all over the place that say people are stupid for working and that real life does not begin until retirement.
It infuriates me.
I have a friend that no longer is a friend. He was an air traffic controller. He retired at age 56, divorced his wife and married a flight attendant so the two of them would get cheap flights and all he does is travel and eat. The reason that we are no longer friends is that when we get together to talk about life, he has nothing of value that interests me to talk about. And I can tell there is a void in his life... he is having fun but there is no real meaning.
My father in-law retired at 58 as the captain of the police department. He has been on anxiety and depression medication since then. He has no hobbies, does not like to read... he keeps telling me that I work too much.
Retirement sucks. There comes a time when age and health impact a person's ability to work, but before then I think we should all have our brains rewired to think about work as not a burden, but a blessing.
The pronouncements about what everyone should do are great if circumstances are applicable to everyone. The fact is that everyone is an individual and has a life that is, in many ways unique to them. The life decisions that one makes are guided by the necessities of adapting to the circumstances of that life, not in some random pronouncement of a pundit or the life experience of another person. Retirement is just another event as is a decision to continue to work. The outcome is eventually the same, you die whatever you do.
I believe it was during the Reagan Era that there was a proposal to fundamentally change Social Security. The idea proposed was all new employees would have their Social Security deductions placed into a personal retirement account. That could be an account managed by a private corporation or one run by the government (I still do not trust the government so I would not do that. There would be restrictions on when one could start withdrawing from the account before reaching retirement age. The government though would not be a safety net for those that mismanaged their retirement money.
The older workers would still do the traditional Social Security. Those that were in the middle could continue with Social Security or convert it to a personal retirement account and the government would transfer what the worker paid into Social Security with interest, into the account and that person would no longer be eligible for Social Security.
Of course it was politically DOA.
Again, what Ben Shapiro is proposing a one size fits all solution. By 60, many are facing serious health issues. Medical science is allowing people to manage their medical problems and continue living a fulfilling life and to even work. (I am in that situation now).
It also depends on the job. My FIL was a firefighter and faced mandatory retirement at 55. That job took a toll on his physical health. He had two heart attacks while working and was diagnosed with leukemia. He had lost over 50% of his hearing so he was retired with a 100% disability. He took another less stressful, and enjoyable job and worked at that for 30 years. He was able to be active and improve his health and his leukemia went into remission until the age of 87. He stopped working at 85 because of failing eyesight and he could no longer physically do the job. He had a job driving and just before he retired from that, he was in an accident when he was stopped at an intersection when a fleeing felon doing 90 T-boned him. He was relatively unscathed due to airbags. The car had to be cut away from him though.
His second job had a lot of flexibility. He could work mostly when he wanted and he would take a couple of month long vacations a year.j. He often worked 6 days a week though because he enjoyed the job and it kept him busy.
My grandfather started working at the age of 10, a few days after Black Friday in 1929. His father was heavily invested in the stock market when it crashed and lost everything, including the family home. He committed suicide. My grandfather got an old Model T running and used that to get jobs hauling just about anything. At the age of 12, he became a chauffeur for a wealthy widow and did that up to the start of WWII, He tried to join the Marine Corps but was rejected because his hearing was poor. (much later he. found out it was a genetic trait when his great grandson was born with the condition. Surgery could only restore hearing to one ear.). So he got a job driving trucks for the US Army stateside.
After the war he worked for the railroad and 10 years after that he worked for the postal service until he retired at 62. Then he got a driving job that he could do 2 to 3 days a week. He did that until he was 80 when he had a stroke. He was officially retired but had more than enough money from the railroad retirement, social security and the investments he made after he retired from the Post Office with the money he was earring driving. He passed away at the age of 89.
Working gives a person purpose to get up every day and stay active. That can add years to your life. I have known more than a few that passed away a couple of years after retirement because they just stayed at home and sat.
I started working at 10 with a paper route. I always had a job and even worked my way through college. I was then a research Biologist for a few years when a major medical issue interfered with my ability to continue working at that job. After a few years off to recover, I started a job as a teacher. Like any job, it has its positives and negatives. I loved the 8 weeks of summer vacation and the two week breaks at the end of each quarter. We spent a lot of time traveling and it allowed me to be on the same schedule as my son so I spent a lot of time with him while he was growing up.
I did have a stroke at the age of 47 and had to take 2 years off to rehab. My health was not so great because of uncontrolled diabetes and a genetic mutation that was responsible for my stroke. At that time there was not any easy way to treat it, but medication did reduce the stroke like symptoms that would occur a couple of times a month. I lost 80 pounds, changed my diet and got my diabetes under good control. I was able to cut my diabetic meds in half. About 10 years later two new meds came out that specifically treat my condition. One is a preventative and the other can stop an episode in as little as 5 minutes.
Then at the age of 62, I was hit with a heart condition that prevented me from working. It took 6 months to diagnose the issue and start treating it. It is easily manageable with meds so I likely have 10 or more years left. Right now though, I have to see 6 specialists to manage all of my health issues..
I would have to teach until 70 to get my full teacher's retirement. I cannot get early retirement for my health issues. I am lucky that my wife taught for nearly 40 years and retired with full benefits and her retirement check is just about the same as when she worked. She continues to work so she is not bored.
I will likely retire from teaching after this school year because it is harder for me to do the job. I can still work, just not teaching. My teacher's retirement will be about 50% of my current salary. I only need 12 quarters to get Social Security and my plan is to work so I can qualify for it. I will not work full time, but I also have many other things to do, like spending time with my soon to be born grandson. My wife and I plan to travel a lot more with our travel trailer. So I will have a job that I can take a month or two off of. I have a few possibilities.
Personally, I would not be in this situation if I could have invested the money I paid into Social Security and the Teacher's retirement fund into my own retirement account. I will only be able to get Social Security because of a recent change in the law. I will get less from the teacher's retirement fund that if I had invested it into a regular retirement account. Their woke investment policies has resulted in their returns being less that the market as a whole. My social security money was just taken by the government to pay for retirement checks to the current Social Security recipients or siphoned off for other government spending. Had it been invested in a personal retirement account, It would likely benefit the economy while earning returns for me. I could then change jobs now, and still withdraw a little from my retirement account to make up the difference and my retirement funds would still experience growth.
To keep Social Security solvent for a few more years the retirement age will have to rise, at least to 67. My current plan is to not file for Social Security until the age of 70. Anyone relying on Social Security for retirement is not very bright. Even now, it does not pay the bills. My MILs Social Security is not enough for daily expenses. She is lucky that her husband started investing the money he earned from overtime starting at the age of 40. She is able to withdraw less than the interest it is earning so those investments continue to grow. She is living very comfortably.
I can't even tell you how happy it would make to have all of my Social Security money in an account I could invest. Unfortunately, they really can't do that because the whole program is a ponzi scheme that's running dry. They need my money and money they borrow to pay someone else's Social Security. Eventually, the whole program is going to essentially die. Yes, there will be something called, "Social Security," but the amount it pays out will be such a pittance it won't help people very much. It's sad that it's going to come to that because it really didn't have to and it's going to hurt a lot of people.
The break up of the USSR shows what will happen. There payments to pensioners have been severely reduced and inflation has eaten up the rest. I saw a video the other day where an elderly gentleman said his pension buys 3 days worth of food. He lives in an uninsulated shack and has a small plot land he can grow food on. He is still not able to grow enough for his needs and he only survives the winter because people will give him food.
Our Founding Fathers set up a great system that has allowed us to become the most powerful nation in the world. It is dependent on an informed and educated population. People made their decisions and could improve there circumstances. Laziness was not rewarded with government handouts. Charity was done at the local level and only provided to those that were truly needy due to health or other issues.
We all know what happens when the government steps in. The majority of my students have no incentive to learn. They just want to be entertained. They want everything given to them. Many refuse to do the work required to gain their education. School interrupts their social lives, which consists of social media and video games.
My top students are often 1st or 2nd generation immigrants who want a better life than where they came from. Then we have a subset of illegal immigrants who came here because they want the government handouts not available back home so they do not have to work. Even their children do not care about an education. They only attend school because it is required to get more government handouts. They get those handouts even if they fail so they do very little academic work and disrupt all th other students. The laws have changed so we cannot suspend them because they have a right to an education so they have to be in the classroom even if they disrupt the education of the others.
I grew up with the philosophy that rights also came with responsibilities. A free education meant I had to take advantage of it and do my best. When I turned 18, I had to support myself. I got my first job at 10 and continued to work all through school. My mom was a single mother of 5. She earned a good salary as an RN, but there were too many mouths to feed. I worked to help the family and pay some of my way.
I was the oldest so at 18, I fully supported myself and attended the local Junior College. I also helped to pay what I could for my siblings. I then left home for a 4 year college and did the pay as you go. I did not have much fun and had very long days and little sleep. I obtained my goals.
What I find disturbing is 16 years ago when I had a stroke at the age of 47, the neurologist that treated me in the hospital wanted to place me on full disability and told me not to expect any improvement with rehab. I refused that offer.
As a teacher in CA, I do not get state sponsored disability. I can buy private disability insurance. Not many teachers do that but my wife and I did. With the school district, once I used up my sick leave, I was placed on the 39 month rehire list. I had 39 months to rehab and have a doctor certify that I was fit to work again. The disability insurance only paid out as long as my doctor stated I was disabled. Near the end of my rehab, I was released to go to work but the district did not want me to come back. They used the few accommodations the doctor said I needed to return to work to say I was not fit to return. I had to hire an attorney and go through the ADA process. The district was forced to take me back because many of the accommodations I could self-accommodate and it required nothing from the district. The two the district was asked to provide were reasonable and allowed me to do my full duties and one would expire in a year and the other in two years per my doctor.
I went back to working full time. I cannot stand the thought of not paying my way. I was raised that way. I also knew that with the hard work of rehab, I would improve though it would take time (two years) because my mother was a nurse and told me about her patients that did the rehab and greatly improved. I did better than expected, I recovered to about 95% of pre-stroke abilities. I learned to take the steps needed to deal with the 5% I had lost. My coworkers today are amazed to learn about my stroke because I do more than the average teacher today does. I do not work bell to bell and then go home.
My siblings, including my sister that is two years younger than I, have bought into the progressive left lies and milk the government handouts for all they can get. I cannot believe they grew up in the same family I did.
My sister, like my other siblings spend on all the perks even thought they earn less money and have more children than I do. Two have declared bankruptcy twice and then after turned around and rang up large credit card debt. My sister just learned that at 65, social security will not even pay her enough to meet her basic needs and her plans to travel have evaporated. That is because she has gone into debt and used every bit of inheritance money to go on cruises. I took the inheritance money, even though it was modest, and invested it. I will not touch that until I absolutely need to. I still plan to put what I earn from working after retirement into my investments because my retirement will be sufficient.
My wife retired two years ago and is still working. All that money she earns from working is put away into investments for the future. By living modestly, we have more than enough for our needs and have enough left over to use for traveling. We travel every time I am on break.
One sister and one brother are angry with me because I will not give them money. I have been told it is my responsibility to give them money if they "need" it because I am family. I refuse to give them money because even though they are in debt, they go on at least two cruises a year. I drive a 30 year old well maintained vehicle (a Toyota that is still running strong) and my wife is driving a well maintained 15 year old vehicle that is well maintained and still running strong. My siblings complain about car payments because they buy a new car every 3 to 5 years. The last 3 vehicles we purchased, we bought used and saved enough to buy them so we would not have payments.
My wife and I are amazed at what people believe they need to have today. We grew up when those things were not available and did not feel we were cheated out on anything. Those experiences taught us how to live within our means and put away for the future. We never thought we were poor and now are amazed at how much extra money we get well above our needs allowing us to do things we could not do even 10 years ago. We are better off than 98% of the world and are living comfortably in spite of not being millionaires.
We have raised a couple of generations now that just expect the government to give them everything with little effort on their part.
I really enjoyed reading your comment; thank you for writing this. I suppose it won't shock you to learn that my experience- sans stroke- was similar in some ways to yours. I worked for 38 years and retired early at age 60, because I had maxed out my retirement benefits. My wife still works 60 to 70 hours per week! I took other jobs, staying busy maintaining my 20 y.o. house and our three 15 plus y.o. vehicles. My siblings are well prepared for retirement so no one begs me for money, but I do lots of carpentry, auto mechanic, plumbing and electrical jobs for my family, which saves them money and gives me some walking around money. We are blessed that the USA used to be a hard working, frugal nation. I think too many pols decided to buy votes with borrowed debt, so this system will crash. Is it wrong for me to say; "I just hope it doesn't crash until after I'm gone?" I hope God doesn't see it that way, because I am really looking forward to eternal life in a glorified body!!!!
Even if my husband didn't need my presence and help, I don't know if I could continue to work full time. But I have many things to do, I'm not sitting idle all day!
Benny boy has gone the way of the right’s new hero and MLM scammer, Patrick Bet David. He also believes that retirement is dumb. Sounds like noodle armed Shapiro has never had a real job in his life. Most people can barely afford to get by let alone fulfill their dreams. Working should be rewarded with time to do what you want. People need something to keep them going when most work a job they don't even like.
I was involuntarily ‘early retired’ at age 59. That was 11 years ago. Despite making necessary withdrawals from our retirement funds we now have more in our nest egg than when our ‘retirement’ began (not adjusted for inflation).
Social Security and part time employment have helped a lot.
My wife quit her retail sales job over a year ago. She decided it was too stressful to continue.
Last summer she fell on the pickleball court and shattered her femur. She is 90 percent recovered now, walking unaided.
I still work part time as a cashier and stocker at our local grocery store. The people interaction and activity are good for me. I want to keep doing this as long as possible but I also don’t want my final ‘check out’ to be at the store.
EDIT: I believe Ben Shapiro does not believe in forced retirement age. If so, I agree with that.
No, he is wrong; retirement is not inherently wrong
(although, retiring on someone else's dime via government largesse* is a horrible idea)
*on a related subject, the answer to the woes of the Social Security Ponzi scheme is not to raise the retirement age. the answer is to maintain as is for older earners and current recipients while weaning the govt out of this failing tool of political manipulation by converting to individually owned accounts for younger earners
My work life began at the age of 16 and ended in 2024 at the age of 76. I was concerned about retiring because I was worried I would be bored and aimless. Not at all. My health is great. I’m far from wealthy but money isn’t a problem. I live alone but close to my son and grands and enjoy every moment of every day. I’m never bored but I live life at my own pace. I consider myself quite fortunate to have a healthy, happy and rewarding retirement. One of the lucky ones I guess🙂
If you love your job and you can still do it keep working. That is simply not the case for most people. The physical demands of work take their toll on many. Limited vacation time is a true curse. Finally, who you work for matters. Terrible leaders outnumber the good ones ten to one.
Change the formula for how long you must work to collect Soc Sec and divorce it from age. Why do people die after retirement? Because they were half dead when they retired.
Hi, everyone. Wish me "happy birthday". In a few days, on the 20th, I will turn 65. What a tragedy it is how loaded this number has become.
You can't blame the congressional staffers who in 1935 came up with this age for eligibility to begin for the new Social Security program they were creating to provide workers insurance against outliving their ability to work. With U.S. life expectancy in that year being 61.7 years, not only would many be dead before 65, certainly many of those who survived to that age would have outlived their ability to work to support themselves.
The thing about insurance however, is that it really only works when the covered risk has a low likelihood of occurring. This is why a healthy 30 year old non smoker can buy a 20 year $500,000 term life insurance policy for $50 dollars a month, while the same healthy non smoker would pay over $1,000 a month for a 10 year $25,000 policy once he's 64 (it's also why there's really no such thing as "dental insurance").
So, at it's outset, Social Security could fairly have been referred to as insurance, since it covered the risk of living past 65 when the life expectancy was less than 62. Fast forward 90 years and U.S. life expectancy is now 78. For a Majority of Americans, living past 65 has a high likelihood of occurring.
The fact that the Social Security Trust Fund (the fund where taxes collected exceeding benefits payed accumulated) has been declining since 2010 and is projected to run out in 2033 allows only one conclusion, what started as insurance and came to be mistaken for investment, is now effectively a Ponzi scheme.
We waited until 1983 to slowly start raising the "full retirement" age and then only to 67. Still today, ask any random person "what's retirement age?", and the most common answer will be 65.
And expectation is a powerful thing. Too many see themselves as done at 65. When I mention my upcoming birthday I am sometimes asked, "are you retiring?" I have to laugh.
I mostly disagree. The majority of jobs suck, that's why they pay you to do them. This idea that you can just pick an enjoyable, fulfilling job is unrealistic and the reason people get bitter. It is like eating your vegetables. You just have to do it so your life is just miserable.
I will also stake out a medium position.
I don't think retirement makes a ton of sense but I also think we need to look into more vacation days, possibly shorten the work day too.
We shouldn't start living when we are 65, we should space it out through our life.
And if it wasn't such a horrible grind the whole way, we wouldn't desperately need the rest in the first place. Rest here being both mental and physical.
This is a key topic for me.
I turned 65 in April. I have been working since I was 12. I love work. I have worked my way up, literally, from the corporate supply room to be CEO of two companies employing around 100 people today. I have done so many things in my life that I have a myriad of skills... including construction, cabinet making, chef, plumbing, electrical, computers and software development, graphic design, accounting, project management, etc. I have an unfortunate health issue that I am fighting but telling my board of directors at both companies that I plan to keep going until I am 70 or more... as long as I am confident that I can do the job 100%. My biggest fear from my health issue is not dying young but not being able to work.
When Social Security was implemented the average life expectancy of males was 65 and for females it was 67. The retirement age was set at 65. The entire basis for SS was to provide the wife some end-of-life benefits after the husband passed while on the job.
Today I am surround by neighbors that retired from the government jobs in their 50s. They live of a fat pension and their healthcare benefits paid for life. In CA where I live, if you don't have a government pension you need $3 million or more in the bank to retire at 67 and have a reasonable life. Retiring earlier requires more in the bank. Basically, early retirement is something that requires high wealth. My retired government job neighbors are multimillionaires funded by my high state taxes and they don't even know it.
The average person was expected to work for most of their living life. Not only was this financially required for the entirety of society to work, but it has also satisfied the human psychological need of having meaning and purpose.
But, somewhere along the path to being a well-functioning human this was corrupted. Today average people believe they are entitled to retirement. Life expectancy has shot up to the high 80s, and so retiring at 65 means 20-25 years of non-work time to the end of a life.
But even that is not enough... there are memes all over the place that say people are stupid for working and that real life does not begin until retirement.
It infuriates me.
I have a friend that no longer is a friend. He was an air traffic controller. He retired at age 56, divorced his wife and married a flight attendant so the two of them would get cheap flights and all he does is travel and eat. The reason that we are no longer friends is that when we get together to talk about life, he has nothing of value that interests me to talk about. And I can tell there is a void in his life... he is having fun but there is no real meaning.
My father in-law retired at 58 as the captain of the police department. He has been on anxiety and depression medication since then. He has no hobbies, does not like to read... he keeps telling me that I work too much.
Retirement sucks. There comes a time when age and health impact a person's ability to work, but before then I think we should all have our brains rewired to think about work as not a burden, but a blessing.
The pronouncements about what everyone should do are great if circumstances are applicable to everyone. The fact is that everyone is an individual and has a life that is, in many ways unique to them. The life decisions that one makes are guided by the necessities of adapting to the circumstances of that life, not in some random pronouncement of a pundit or the life experience of another person. Retirement is just another event as is a decision to continue to work. The outcome is eventually the same, you die whatever you do.
I believe it was during the Reagan Era that there was a proposal to fundamentally change Social Security. The idea proposed was all new employees would have their Social Security deductions placed into a personal retirement account. That could be an account managed by a private corporation or one run by the government (I still do not trust the government so I would not do that. There would be restrictions on when one could start withdrawing from the account before reaching retirement age. The government though would not be a safety net for those that mismanaged their retirement money.
The older workers would still do the traditional Social Security. Those that were in the middle could continue with Social Security or convert it to a personal retirement account and the government would transfer what the worker paid into Social Security with interest, into the account and that person would no longer be eligible for Social Security.
Of course it was politically DOA.
Again, what Ben Shapiro is proposing a one size fits all solution. By 60, many are facing serious health issues. Medical science is allowing people to manage their medical problems and continue living a fulfilling life and to even work. (I am in that situation now).
It also depends on the job. My FIL was a firefighter and faced mandatory retirement at 55. That job took a toll on his physical health. He had two heart attacks while working and was diagnosed with leukemia. He had lost over 50% of his hearing so he was retired with a 100% disability. He took another less stressful, and enjoyable job and worked at that for 30 years. He was able to be active and improve his health and his leukemia went into remission until the age of 87. He stopped working at 85 because of failing eyesight and he could no longer physically do the job. He had a job driving and just before he retired from that, he was in an accident when he was stopped at an intersection when a fleeing felon doing 90 T-boned him. He was relatively unscathed due to airbags. The car had to be cut away from him though.
His second job had a lot of flexibility. He could work mostly when he wanted and he would take a couple of month long vacations a year.j. He often worked 6 days a week though because he enjoyed the job and it kept him busy.
My grandfather started working at the age of 10, a few days after Black Friday in 1929. His father was heavily invested in the stock market when it crashed and lost everything, including the family home. He committed suicide. My grandfather got an old Model T running and used that to get jobs hauling just about anything. At the age of 12, he became a chauffeur for a wealthy widow and did that up to the start of WWII, He tried to join the Marine Corps but was rejected because his hearing was poor. (much later he. found out it was a genetic trait when his great grandson was born with the condition. Surgery could only restore hearing to one ear.). So he got a job driving trucks for the US Army stateside.
After the war he worked for the railroad and 10 years after that he worked for the postal service until he retired at 62. Then he got a driving job that he could do 2 to 3 days a week. He did that until he was 80 when he had a stroke. He was officially retired but had more than enough money from the railroad retirement, social security and the investments he made after he retired from the Post Office with the money he was earring driving. He passed away at the age of 89.
Working gives a person purpose to get up every day and stay active. That can add years to your life. I have known more than a few that passed away a couple of years after retirement because they just stayed at home and sat.
I started working at 10 with a paper route. I always had a job and even worked my way through college. I was then a research Biologist for a few years when a major medical issue interfered with my ability to continue working at that job. After a few years off to recover, I started a job as a teacher. Like any job, it has its positives and negatives. I loved the 8 weeks of summer vacation and the two week breaks at the end of each quarter. We spent a lot of time traveling and it allowed me to be on the same schedule as my son so I spent a lot of time with him while he was growing up.
I did have a stroke at the age of 47 and had to take 2 years off to rehab. My health was not so great because of uncontrolled diabetes and a genetic mutation that was responsible for my stroke. At that time there was not any easy way to treat it, but medication did reduce the stroke like symptoms that would occur a couple of times a month. I lost 80 pounds, changed my diet and got my diabetes under good control. I was able to cut my diabetic meds in half. About 10 years later two new meds came out that specifically treat my condition. One is a preventative and the other can stop an episode in as little as 5 minutes.
Then at the age of 62, I was hit with a heart condition that prevented me from working. It took 6 months to diagnose the issue and start treating it. It is easily manageable with meds so I likely have 10 or more years left. Right now though, I have to see 6 specialists to manage all of my health issues..
I would have to teach until 70 to get my full teacher's retirement. I cannot get early retirement for my health issues. I am lucky that my wife taught for nearly 40 years and retired with full benefits and her retirement check is just about the same as when she worked. She continues to work so she is not bored.
I will likely retire from teaching after this school year because it is harder for me to do the job. I can still work, just not teaching. My teacher's retirement will be about 50% of my current salary. I only need 12 quarters to get Social Security and my plan is to work so I can qualify for it. I will not work full time, but I also have many other things to do, like spending time with my soon to be born grandson. My wife and I plan to travel a lot more with our travel trailer. So I will have a job that I can take a month or two off of. I have a few possibilities.
Personally, I would not be in this situation if I could have invested the money I paid into Social Security and the Teacher's retirement fund into my own retirement account. I will only be able to get Social Security because of a recent change in the law. I will get less from the teacher's retirement fund that if I had invested it into a regular retirement account. Their woke investment policies has resulted in their returns being less that the market as a whole. My social security money was just taken by the government to pay for retirement checks to the current Social Security recipients or siphoned off for other government spending. Had it been invested in a personal retirement account, It would likely benefit the economy while earning returns for me. I could then change jobs now, and still withdraw a little from my retirement account to make up the difference and my retirement funds would still experience growth.
To keep Social Security solvent for a few more years the retirement age will have to rise, at least to 67. My current plan is to not file for Social Security until the age of 70. Anyone relying on Social Security for retirement is not very bright. Even now, it does not pay the bills. My MILs Social Security is not enough for daily expenses. She is lucky that her husband started investing the money he earned from overtime starting at the age of 40. She is able to withdraw less than the interest it is earning so those investments continue to grow. She is living very comfortably.
I can't even tell you how happy it would make to have all of my Social Security money in an account I could invest. Unfortunately, they really can't do that because the whole program is a ponzi scheme that's running dry. They need my money and money they borrow to pay someone else's Social Security. Eventually, the whole program is going to essentially die. Yes, there will be something called, "Social Security," but the amount it pays out will be such a pittance it won't help people very much. It's sad that it's going to come to that because it really didn't have to and it's going to hurt a lot of people.
The break up of the USSR shows what will happen. There payments to pensioners have been severely reduced and inflation has eaten up the rest. I saw a video the other day where an elderly gentleman said his pension buys 3 days worth of food. He lives in an uninsulated shack and has a small plot land he can grow food on. He is still not able to grow enough for his needs and he only survives the winter because people will give him food.
Our Founding Fathers set up a great system that has allowed us to become the most powerful nation in the world. It is dependent on an informed and educated population. People made their decisions and could improve there circumstances. Laziness was not rewarded with government handouts. Charity was done at the local level and only provided to those that were truly needy due to health or other issues.
We all know what happens when the government steps in. The majority of my students have no incentive to learn. They just want to be entertained. They want everything given to them. Many refuse to do the work required to gain their education. School interrupts their social lives, which consists of social media and video games.
My top students are often 1st or 2nd generation immigrants who want a better life than where they came from. Then we have a subset of illegal immigrants who came here because they want the government handouts not available back home so they do not have to work. Even their children do not care about an education. They only attend school because it is required to get more government handouts. They get those handouts even if they fail so they do very little academic work and disrupt all th other students. The laws have changed so we cannot suspend them because they have a right to an education so they have to be in the classroom even if they disrupt the education of the others.
I grew up with the philosophy that rights also came with responsibilities. A free education meant I had to take advantage of it and do my best. When I turned 18, I had to support myself. I got my first job at 10 and continued to work all through school. My mom was a single mother of 5. She earned a good salary as an RN, but there were too many mouths to feed. I worked to help the family and pay some of my way.
I was the oldest so at 18, I fully supported myself and attended the local Junior College. I also helped to pay what I could for my siblings. I then left home for a 4 year college and did the pay as you go. I did not have much fun and had very long days and little sleep. I obtained my goals.
What I find disturbing is 16 years ago when I had a stroke at the age of 47, the neurologist that treated me in the hospital wanted to place me on full disability and told me not to expect any improvement with rehab. I refused that offer.
As a teacher in CA, I do not get state sponsored disability. I can buy private disability insurance. Not many teachers do that but my wife and I did. With the school district, once I used up my sick leave, I was placed on the 39 month rehire list. I had 39 months to rehab and have a doctor certify that I was fit to work again. The disability insurance only paid out as long as my doctor stated I was disabled. Near the end of my rehab, I was released to go to work but the district did not want me to come back. They used the few accommodations the doctor said I needed to return to work to say I was not fit to return. I had to hire an attorney and go through the ADA process. The district was forced to take me back because many of the accommodations I could self-accommodate and it required nothing from the district. The two the district was asked to provide were reasonable and allowed me to do my full duties and one would expire in a year and the other in two years per my doctor.
I went back to working full time. I cannot stand the thought of not paying my way. I was raised that way. I also knew that with the hard work of rehab, I would improve though it would take time (two years) because my mother was a nurse and told me about her patients that did the rehab and greatly improved. I did better than expected, I recovered to about 95% of pre-stroke abilities. I learned to take the steps needed to deal with the 5% I had lost. My coworkers today are amazed to learn about my stroke because I do more than the average teacher today does. I do not work bell to bell and then go home.
My siblings, including my sister that is two years younger than I, have bought into the progressive left lies and milk the government handouts for all they can get. I cannot believe they grew up in the same family I did.
My sister, like my other siblings spend on all the perks even thought they earn less money and have more children than I do. Two have declared bankruptcy twice and then after turned around and rang up large credit card debt. My sister just learned that at 65, social security will not even pay her enough to meet her basic needs and her plans to travel have evaporated. That is because she has gone into debt and used every bit of inheritance money to go on cruises. I took the inheritance money, even though it was modest, and invested it. I will not touch that until I absolutely need to. I still plan to put what I earn from working after retirement into my investments because my retirement will be sufficient.
My wife retired two years ago and is still working. All that money she earns from working is put away into investments for the future. By living modestly, we have more than enough for our needs and have enough left over to use for traveling. We travel every time I am on break.
One sister and one brother are angry with me because I will not give them money. I have been told it is my responsibility to give them money if they "need" it because I am family. I refuse to give them money because even though they are in debt, they go on at least two cruises a year. I drive a 30 year old well maintained vehicle (a Toyota that is still running strong) and my wife is driving a well maintained 15 year old vehicle that is well maintained and still running strong. My siblings complain about car payments because they buy a new car every 3 to 5 years. The last 3 vehicles we purchased, we bought used and saved enough to buy them so we would not have payments.
My wife and I are amazed at what people believe they need to have today. We grew up when those things were not available and did not feel we were cheated out on anything. Those experiences taught us how to live within our means and put away for the future. We never thought we were poor and now are amazed at how much extra money we get well above our needs allowing us to do things we could not do even 10 years ago. We are better off than 98% of the world and are living comfortably in spite of not being millionaires.
We have raised a couple of generations now that just expect the government to give them everything with little effort on their part.
I really enjoyed reading your comment; thank you for writing this. I suppose it won't shock you to learn that my experience- sans stroke- was similar in some ways to yours. I worked for 38 years and retired early at age 60, because I had maxed out my retirement benefits. My wife still works 60 to 70 hours per week! I took other jobs, staying busy maintaining my 20 y.o. house and our three 15 plus y.o. vehicles. My siblings are well prepared for retirement so no one begs me for money, but I do lots of carpentry, auto mechanic, plumbing and electrical jobs for my family, which saves them money and gives me some walking around money. We are blessed that the USA used to be a hard working, frugal nation. I think too many pols decided to buy votes with borrowed debt, so this system will crash. Is it wrong for me to say; "I just hope it doesn't crash until after I'm gone?" I hope God doesn't see it that way, because I am really looking forward to eternal life in a glorified body!!!!
Even if my husband didn't need my presence and help, I don't know if I could continue to work full time. But I have many things to do, I'm not sitting idle all day!
Yes.
Benny boy has gone the way of the right’s new hero and MLM scammer, Patrick Bet David. He also believes that retirement is dumb. Sounds like noodle armed Shapiro has never had a real job in his life. Most people can barely afford to get by let alone fulfill their dreams. Working should be rewarded with time to do what you want. People need something to keep them going when most work a job they don't even like.