Posted on 03/30/2012 4:05:16 AM PDT by quesney
Canada's center-right government called for the retirement age to be raised and for major public service cuts Thursday, in an austerity budget that aims to balance the books by 2016.
Tackling unpopular measures that many industrialized countries are being forced to consider as their populations age, the Canadian government said its budget would help the country move a step ahead.
"Other Western countries face the risk of long-term economic decline. We have a rare opportunity to position our country for sustainable, long-term growth," Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said in the House of Commons.
(Excerpt) Read more at ca.news.yahoo.com ...
The Finance Minister specifically declines to characterize his budget as an austerity budget.
The USA already raised the age for full retirement long ago. Trouble is we didn’t raise the age for early retirement. No one in this country can get full SS benefits at age 65 anymore. It is now 66 and going to 67.
While we have raised the age of full SS benefit eligibility, we haven’t raised it far enough or fast enough to prevent serious problems.
It needs to be raised to about 75 *right now*. Not decades off in the future, but now.
As it is, the money flow tipping point (whether more money was going into or coming out of the SS fund) was predicted to happen in 2017 has started as of 2010.
HA HA...Canada wants to balance the budget by 2016. Silly country still using those old-fashioned things called ‘budgets’...why don’t those old stodgy loser countries stop using their tired, backwards money-management methods that just get in the way of real progress...like in America where we have a limitless credit card and operate on no budget for years!
Can a US citizen working in Canada retire and collect Canadian pension?
Canada, although it has a AAA rating, does not have an unlimited credit card. The US has a AA rating and a “no limit” card, for now.
My guess as to why the predictions were so wildly off base is that during the recession a lot of people who lost jobs felt they had no recourse other than accept early retirement (age 62-65). We considered it ourselves, but decided to cut our budget a lot and muddle through for another few years until we qualified for full SS. We're glad we did.
Here in Australia we have a lefty government and even they are yelling at the top of their lungs that come hell or high water, they will deliver a budget surplus next FY.
Like Mark Steyn said, at this point you need to get the wrong people to do the right thing or you are doomed.
Most Canadian government workers retire in their 50’s.
Most Canadian government workers retire in their 50’s.
“It needs to be raised to about 75”
Do you seriously think people will be capable of doing their jobs when they are in their seventies? I retired at 61 because after 45 years of looking into a microscope my eyes were shot and I was unable to see important elements in the specimens I was examining. My fear of making an incorrect diagnosis was greater than my fear of having a dramatic shift in my income.
While 75 sounds like a nice number to aim for I am not sure that it is realistic. By the way if I had tried to apply for disability I would have received twice as much as my SS payments.
I have no cushy job...my job is physically and mentally and emotionally draining and I can't see being able to go much after age 62 so I NEED my SS at that age....
its not like we haven't paid for SS.....we've paid 5x over.....
SS disability is really the problem...so much abuse....
The pension payout is based on how much you pay into the CPP plan, either deducted at work or thru self-contribution.
So it depends if you’ve had any CPP contributions made from your Canadian income over the years.
The actuarial mathematics of Social Security demand one of the following:
1. Raising the age of benefit initiation to the median life expectancy of the age cohort retiring, or
2. Means testing benefits.
When 65 was chosen as the “retirement age,” it was the median life expectancy of males in the 1930’s. Let me translate that mathematical jargon for you:
The government expected that, of people eligible to collect Social Security payments, HALF WOULD BE ALREADY DEAD.
That’s how the actuarial mathematics worked back then.
As life expectancy has rapidly increased due to increases in health care and nutrition, the SS system’s mathematics have become completely unsustainable. We now have far too many people eligible to collect off the system. Whereas in the early days, there were 17 people paying into it for every person collecting, today there’s about 2.7 people paying in for every person collecting. And that number is going down, leaving a larger and larger burden upon those who are of working age, paying into the system.
The math doesn’t lie. It can’t continue as it is.
The second option, means testing, should be done on a sliding scale, where those who need more, get more, and those who don’t need anything get nothing. This would break the Democrats’ biggest selling point, that ‘everyone who pays in can depend on getting paid!’ and it would devolve into a conventional welfare scheme at that point.
Too many people have believed the lies of the Democrats and RINO’s that SS is a pension. It isn’t. It is a social welfare scheme, and the SCOTUS said so in Flemming v. Nestor, in 1960. There is no pension, there is no property right, there is nothing to prevent the Congress from changing the benefit payout(s) or eliminating them outright.
So the answer is yes. The amount being dependent on your earnings in Canada.
Similar to the US.
correct?
The reason I ask is my contention that SS benefits should only be paid out to US citizens.
The DI part of Social Security is rapidly becoming a massive financial albatross. When the DI rules were relaxed to include a wide range of “mental-health” disabilities, that opened the DI eligibility door to 50-year-old wrench monkeys who were “depressed” because they couldn't find another $80K union job when their plant closed.
Professional athletes retire earlier than that, my point being that many careers today have a "useful life" shorter than a working life span. For example, the half-life of an engineer's education is estimated at five years.
Can you teach children to read?
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