Kucinich Jobs Bill: Lower the Retirement Age
I know it is risky so early in the year, but I have a nomination for the worst idea of 2010. Representative Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), wants to make Social Security retirement benefits available beginning at age 60. Temporarily. To create jobs.
His logic appears to be this: If one million people between 60 and 62 (the current age for early Social Security eligibility) retire early, they will open up one million new opportunities for younger people. Somehow, in Kucinich-math, this creates jobs.
Now, this scheme may create some job openings, and it may reduce the unemployment rate (since it would take some 60-year olds out of the workforce). But it won’t increase the total number of people working, which I thought was the idea. Indeed, since employers may not replace all these new retirees, the scheme could even make the jobs problem worse.
Kucinich says this early retirement plan would be temporary. In recent weeks, he’s suggested it might be for five years, or six months, or that he'd lower the eligibility age for the first one million people who apply for early benefits. But does anyone out there actually believe Congress would raise the retirement age right after lowering it? I don’t. And I doubt Kucinich does either.
Kucinich figures these extra benefits would cost $15 billion. He’d pay for them with $10 billion in bailout money and $5 billion in stimulus dollars. That is to say, he’d borrow it. The former presidential hopeful thinks he gets a fiscal pass because Social Security isn't paying these added benefits, but borrowing is borrowing.
Let’s be serious. Social Security has a problem, and lowering the retirement age would only make it worse. The government has already promised retirees about 30 percent more in benefits than it can pay over the long-run. It will somehow have to find a way to either hike taxes or reduce promised benefits to bridge that gap. Raising, not lowering, the early retirement age would be a good start. With luck, President Obama’s deficit commission may find the political will to fix the troubled retirement program. Kucinich, by contrast, only wants to make things worse.
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This scheme may create some job openings, and it may reduce the unemployment rate
If one million people between 60 and 62 (the current age for early Social Security eligibility) retire early, they will open up one million new opportunities for younger people. Somehow, in Kucinich-math, this creates jobs.
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Social Security has a problem, and lowering the retirement age would only make it worse. The government has already promised retirees about 30 percent more in benefits than it can pay over the long-run. It will somehow have to find a way to either hike taxes or reduce promised benefits to bridge that gap. Raising, not lowering, the early retirement age would be a good start.
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Lowering the age limit for retirement is a disgusting decision.I know that the govt is facing many problems regarding unemployment but I think this is not a solution to that.The govt should soon try to overcome these problems so that that the trust of common people will remain on the govt system.
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I think just lowering the retiring age will be a trouble to the local people of their country.Social Security has a problem, and lowering the retirement age would only make it worse. The government has already promised retirees about 30 percent more in benefits than it can pay over the long-run. It will somehow have to find a way to either hike taxes or reduce promised benefits to bridge that gap. Raising, not lowering, the early retirement age would be a good start. With luck, President Obama’s deficit commission may find the political will to fix the troubled retirement program.
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Paying taxes has become an intolerable torture to the common people.I think the govt is behaving like a corrupted organization which is always making money from its common people.This type of non sense should be soon eradicated otherwise it might create a problem to the govt.
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Considering that average age is ~70 years, lowering retirement age would be a good idea. After you payed taxes for ~45years you should spend your last years enjoying life. I admire french people for defending their rights when government tried to raise retirement age. Termopane
This is one of the ideas we rarely hear from the politicians. People are already 100% convinced that they have no right whatsoever to social security. We must understand that it is OUR money and we must have the right to live in a society that looks after its old population. Government gives money to stimulate the economy so this can be one way to do that. Also, lowering weekly work hours to 30 or even 35 would be fair in my opinion as well as 30 vacation days per year.
It is amazing. Take TARP and stimulus money and give it to people to retire at age 60 to open up jobs for others. Why not give the money back to the taxpayers or at least pay down the deficit? Taking the reduced retirement age away after 6 months will certainly make people trust the Government even more.
Kucinich is always good for a laugh – the two previous comments sum up what reasonable people would conclude on such ideas. Social Security is a disaster of either immense or merely large proportions. That certainly would not be improved by accelerating the draw down of funds.
This is assuming his plan is serious rather than a press release (which I suspect it is). The only way to allow retirement at 60 is to create personal retirement accounts to totally replace Social Security eventually, with the accounts holding shares of the retirees company (66.7%) and a mutual insurance fund of employee owned firms (33.3%), with immediate funding with the Social Security Trust fund's liquidation and a provision to allow firms to opt out of FICA taxes by making whole their retirees, current employees and former employees with shares they would have received if they had been in the plan their entire work lives, adjusted for retiree prior payouts through FICA – and funded by converting retained earnings to share distribution.
This is the kind of libertarian socialism that Kucinich may go for, although I don't think that the Democratic Caucus would. I'm sure the GOP would not, since it would quickly be apparent that in the end the financial sector would cease to exist, as would highly paid CEOs and other Republicans.