alt Hacker NewsIf you work for 40 years, chances are you will have accumulated some assets. I'm not sure that "sell your house and cars to pay for food" is a policy that will be popular.
Equally those same people have paid taxes for 40 years, paid into social security (to the benefit of their elders) and so on.
Keeping them in the work-force is largely undesirable. A job occupied by a 70 year old is a job not occupied by someone younger. If retirement age was say 80 instead of 60, there would be 25% fewer jobs to go around. (using imprecise simple math).
Look, most all of us will get old and eventually claim on social security or whatever. Politically just "ending that" is pretty much a non-starter to anyone who has been contributing for any length of time. Even fiddling with the edges of it (raising the retirement age) will get you voted out of office.
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> If retirement age was say 80 instead of 60, there would be 25% fewer jobs to go around.
By that logic, when the population was 25% less than it is now (~1980s), there was a job for everyone.
> Keeping them in the work-force is largely undesirable.
That presumes there are a fixed number of jobs. Anyone can create a job, even doing simple things like going door to door and offering to mow the lawn.
>... If retirement age was say 80 instead of 60, there would be 25% fewer jobs to go around. (using imprecise simple math).
Economists refer to this idea as the lump of labour fallacy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lump_of_labour_fallacy