Making Politicians Sign Pledge - Never Cut SS

[Cheerful Charlie]

Several progressive organiztions have joined forces to demand Senators and Representitives to sign a pledge never to vote for cuts to Social Security or Medicare. They have set up a site to track who signs and does not. Seems ro be modelled on the Grover Norquist pledge never for any reason to raise taxes most Republicans signed back when Norquist demanded that from Republicans.

This should make that idea of slashing SS etc a problem for the GOP. Making it hard to shut up and hope nobody notices the silence. This is going to be interesting to watch.

Don't Cut Social Security or Medicare |

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Define "cuts".

As life expectancy increases one should expect the retirement age to slowly creep up.

 

[Elixir]

Define "cuts".

As life expectancy increases one should expect the retirement age to slowly creep up.

What if it doesn’t?
Then it’s a cut. So keep people poor enough that they have to keep working, and paying fica. Then they don’t live so long after retirement (probably from disability), and the problem is solved!

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

By slashing Medicare and Medicaid the GOP guarantees older Americans will not be healthy long before retirement age. Here in Texas, Abbot and his GOP morons refused to support a ACA exchange, making it hard for poorer Texans to get adequate health care. They just do not care. Not even a little bit. Never did. Never will.

 

[marc]

Define "cuts".

As life expectancy increases one should expect the retirement age to slowly creep up.

Well then since life expectancy has gone down in recent years, shouldn't they be reducing the retirement age then?

Of course, how long one is fit enough to work does not necessarily increase with length of life.

 

[bilby]

Define "cuts".

As life expectancy increases one should expect the retirement age to slowly creep up.

Well then since life expectancy has gone down in recent years, shouldn't they be reducing the retirement age then?

Of course, how long one is fit enough to work does not necessarily increase with length of life.

It also depends a lot on the type of work. It's ridiculous to have the same retirement age for coal miners as we have for computer programmers.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

The problem with programmers is, you will find it hard to work after age 50. You may get retired, like it or not, whether or not you can do the job. A lot of younger people notice this and are avoiding getting into CS, programming, IT etc. And now a lot of companies are complaining they can't get good, young programmers.

 

[bilby]

The problem with programmers is, you will find it hard to work after age 50. You may get retired, like it or not, whether or not you can do the job. A lot of younger people notice this and are avoiding getting into CS, programming, IT etc. And now a lot of companies are complaining they can't get good, young programmers.

For sure. When I started working in IT I was the wise old man of the office, and my coworkers would ask me for advice on things like savings, home ownership, and career progression, because of my vast life experience. I was in my thirties.

Whereas when I started my current job, some twenty years later, I found that I was one of the youngsters. We have plenty of operators who are in their sixties and seventies, and the average age is easily in the late fifties. Partly that's because it's a heavily unionised government job, and partly it's because it's clean, indoor work with no heavy lifting. Basically people don't want to retire, and don't have any pressure put on them to do so - as long as they can pass the medical (annually after the age if sixty), they can keep working for as long as they like.

But my point is that every career is different; A "one size fits all" retirement age isn't likely to fit many people at all.