Weekly/biweekly Michigan legislative action thread
Posted on 12/23/2012 12:21:34 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
KALAMAZOO, MI – It may be time to put away those rocking chairs and list the golf clubs on eBay. Whether driven by economic necessity or a desire to remain engaged, more people are punching clocks well past their 65th birthday.
In 2012, one in nine men over age 75 was working, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and one in 20 women over 75 were employed. That was the highest number recorded since the government started keeping those statistics in 1981.
"I do think that a lot of people who are approaching later in life these days are thinking differently about the future of retirement," said Jacquelyn James, director of research at the Sloan Center on Aging & Work at Boston College. "People are living longer, and how many years do you want to play golf?"
It's been called the gray ceiling and the silver-collar economy. But the fact is that more people are putting off retirement. Factors impacting the trend include Americans' longer life spans, an increase in jobs that are powered by information rather than muscle and the shift from employer-funded pensions to 401(k)s that have left many people's retirement funds lighter than needed. Critics have expressed concerns that younger workers may get squeezed as older workers linger at their desks. Some worry that employers may choose workers over 65, who qualify for Medicare, rather than pick up health-care costs for younger employees...
(Excerpt) Read more at mlive.com ...
I bet most of them are still blaming Bush and giving Obama a pass. Some of them may never wake up to reality.
From what I've heard, before FDR retirement was unheard of, at least 10 and 20 years of not working. FDR set retirement at 65 because the thought was , you'd live maybe another 5 years collecting soc sec, and old timers needed to free up jobs for the younger unemployed.
Seems like we've come full circle now.
KZoo is a great place with many attractions.
(If it wants its local economy to recover, all it need do is tell NASA about a certain little drive-thru fried chicken place where just a single $3.49 serving of fish-and-chips has enough grease to propel the next moon rocket....)
ha!
instant death! (tastes great, so it is fortunate KZoo has two really good hospitals!)
I’m not so sure Americans do live all that much longer these days. I’ve been doing a lot of genealogy research into my family and I’m finding that the men were living into their mid 80s with a fair amount of regularity in the late 1700s.
A lot of the women seemed to die in their 40s and 50s but I attribute that with having 9 to 15 children.
It was the children that had the highest mortality rate. By my estimate, nearly 2 of every 5 children died before reaching their teens.
What else is new? I’m sure I’ll have to work until I drop....to pay for all the takers “Obama-phones” and goodies that keep Dems in Office.
“In 2012, one in nine men over age 75 was working, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and one in 20 women over 75 were employed. That was the highest number recorded since the government started keeping those statistics in 1981.” I feel sorry for the senior workers who didn’t vote for Obama but those who did can sit and suck their thumbs.
I’m not convinced that what 9% of over 75 men and 5% of over 75 women do constitutes a trend. A badly-written story posing as news. A record statistic? What are the smoothed average figures over the last ten or twenty years?
“I’ve been doing a lot of genealogy research into my family and I’m finding that the men were living into their mid 80s with a fair amount of regularity in the late 1700s.”
My genealogy research suggests the same. If you made it to age 20, you likely would live to 70 or more. In the 1700’s and 1800’s the records show many large families had 30% and higher child mortality rates.
I can count on my hands the number of people that died before 90 on both sides of my family in the last 150 years.
I know of 6 that have lived to be over 100.
If anything people today are working longer because jobs aren’t as physically demanding and mostly because government takes a much bigger bite.
You can no longer work for 30 years then get by on a little subsistence farming.
I particularly enjoyed their link to companies changing from pensions to 401k’s and then in the next sentence they mention how it harms younger workers because the older workers can be on medicare! Yep, those darn evil corporations doing what they have to do to make evil profits! Don’t they know the benevolent government programs are not supposed to effect their actions!
Economic decisions are supposed to be static, that is the only way the benevolent government programs can combat the evil profiteering corporations!
I think they average life spans, and those kids dying so young skewed the actual life spans of most people....
and yet, we have one nurse on my floor who is well over 70...she looks great....
I was thinking the other day that I might have to stay working, since being a nurse is a sure and steady job, decent money, and I may have to work to support my adult children and their children....
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