[srcno]

I don't understand why Congress doesn't incrementally, predictably, and slowly raise the retirement age for Social Security. It was never intended as a retirement program - instead it an insurance for those those that lived beyond the average life expectancy.

I don't think it's unreasable to expect people to save enough to cover then between their age of retirement to say 70 or 75. Then let the insurance kick in after that.

[tunesmith]

The "increased environment age" is justified by longer lifespans, but these longer lifespans are greatly affected by the income inequality gap. The people that need SS the most aren't experiencing great increases in lifespan length, so are therefore hurt by the raised retirement age.

[naravara]

>I don't understand why Congress doesn't incrementally, predictably, and slowly raise the retirement age for Social Security. It was never intended as a retirement program - instead it an insurance for those those that lived beyond the average life expectancy.

This is absolutely untrue. Here is FDR's address as he signed Social Security into law: https://www.ssa.gov/history/fdrstmts.html#signing

This doesn't sound at all like it's not meant to be a retirement program. He even explicitly uses the word 'pension.'

"Young people have come to wonder what would be their lot when they came to old age. The man with a job has wondered how long the job would last.

This social security measure gives at least some protection to thirty millions of our citizens who will reap direct benefits through unemployment compensation, through old-age pensions and through increased services for the protection of children and the prevention of ill health.

We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life, but we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age."

[Terr_]

Well, it was always literally an insurance program -- the "I" in OASDI.

[howard941]

The retirement age increases are already in the law. You want to speed them up? It's already unreasonable to cover the gap between retirement and SS, more so with Medicare linked to the increasing age. Check out the cost of health insurance for a 64 year old.

[maxxxxx]

"I don't think it's unreasable to expect people to save enough to cover then between their age of retirement to say 70 or 75. Then let the insurance kick in after that."

I would like that too. It's much easier to save until a defined age instead of having to save for potentially a very long life.

[compiler-guy]

“Was never intended to be”, is not a great way of reasoning about the problem today. It may not have been intended to be a retirement system when it was established, but that is what it is now, and intentionally so.

It got that way over time, but it does solve (or at least address) the retirement problem the country faces right now. Going back to the old insurance service is both politically impossible and would just leave the retirement plan problem completely unsolved.

We would need to figure out another solution. Which leaves us right back where we started.

[t0mbstone]

I have been paying a huge chunk of my paycheck towards social security ever since I started working full time at the age of 16. If I continue putting money into social security and never see it because I die at 70, how is that fair?

I would rather the government just give me all my social security money back and let me invest it. I have probably given them a couple hundred thousand dollars by now.

[Terr_]

> and never see it because I die at 70, how is that fair?

"I paid premiums for fire-insurance, and my house was never destroyed in a raging inferno, how is that fair?"

Basically if you die, then you're definitively not at risk for "being old and poor." It's also an excellent time to stop paying the premiums, which fortunately occurs automatically...

[vostok]

> It was never intended as a retirement program - instead it an insurance for those those that lived beyond the average life expectancy.

Just for context, do you happen to know the change in life expectancy at age 30 over the relevant time period?