The Tierney article is annoyingly written and he is an annoying person. I distrust any op-ed piece that makes it sound like things are really much better in Chile than they are here.  But I actually think that the retirement age should be raised.  When it was first set at 65, life expectany was much lower.  The truth is that most people are still highly functional these days when they reach 65 or 67.

Here is my proposal: raise the retirement age 1 month per year for 36 years.  That way, no one group gets punished more than another and it should help keep up with increased life expectany due to better health care and healthier lifestyles. Time spent in retirement will probably be the same number of years because life expectany will probably increase at something close to the same rate as the retirement age.

I think this would fair and would help the long-term solvency of Social Security.

Tierney misses two points. The Chilean system was imposed by Pinochet. I am not sure we want a military dictator to revamp our retirement system.

Tierney also misses the point that Social Security is a social insurance program not an investment program. 401ks, IRAs are sources of investment not Social Security.

Based on his columns so far, Tierney's choice for that prime real estate on the Times editorial page makes sense only if we see the move as an effort to make David Brooks seem a tad less insane.

Why do economic-based attacks on programs like social security not recognize the very real economic benefits involved when government provides income security?  It's like saying that having a big professional military offers no economic benefit to a nation because then people just assume that someone else is going to assure their protection.  The result? Civilians focus on building useful industry and skills rather training with weapons 8 hours a day.       

To Tierney, that's a kind of sloth we should avoid.  

   Let me put it straight.  Tierney has his head stuffed up somewhere, and this column is hardly the first time he has revealed it.  It is a shame -- the Times used to have the likes of Tom Wicker and now we're stuck with David Brooks, John Tierney and the oversold Thomas Friedman (who doesn't put his email on his columns, curiously).

     First of all, his proposal makes some sense -- for a society with a labor shortage.  But the US is having the opposite problem, not generating enough jobs to meet the growing labor force.  And he doesn't address the arguments that tightening the Social Security belt, again, as W Bush and Alan Greenspan both desire, is really necessary, or the best policy on social security.

     As I understand it, minor changes could help stabilize social security for the next 70 years.  I suppose Josh Marshall could write a much better and more expert column, and should send one to the op-ed page for them to print it.  I notice that the 2% return on Social Security investments, which doesn't impact what recipients get directly, only the revenue sourcing, is low because of restrictions on how Social Security can invest.  And why are those restrictions there?  So that Social Security can subsidize the general revenues by taking a lower rate of return, thus bankrolling Repug 'strategic' megadeficits.  In short, it's all just a scam to squeeze the middle class. (SURPRISE!)

    I also understand that there are groups of workers not in the Social Security system that could be brought in.  They have already started taxing Social Security benefits, and with the high premiums to Medicare getting higher, these complaints about all this Social Security largesse seem misplaced.  (I am on Social Security Disability and Medicare and MassHealth, and the coverage is very limited, especially in MA, for most doctors). 
All these things are hidden taxes on the middle class and the poor to finance tax cuts for the megarich and those inheriting over $5 million.

    A third measure would be to apply the Social Security tax, not by raising the cap at around $90K any faster than inflation, but by freezing it to $200K and making the top bracket over that level pay the full 8%.  It seems only fair, on top of the rollback of the income tax cutS that they have gotten, including on capital gains,
since they have been enjoying a windfall.   Talk about  promoting greed!

      Then there is the stupidest idea of them all -- the privatization scheme.  My understanding is it weakens the financial foundation of the Social Security system rather than strengthening it, to the tune of trillions of dollars.  That is simply unnecessary, and, as Bush has done with Mediscam and with the 'strategic deficits' (not complained about by Alan Greenspan much) with the federal government overall -- a thinly disguised figleaf to undermine Social Security as its purpose.  The whole thing is just a way to squeeze as much as possible into the pockets of the rich and for more guns and less butter.

   And Chile?  People working barely make enough to live on there -- and you want to compare the proportion in the pension payments to the US?  That's a shell game, just like the whole policy.  Incidentally, what really will need shoring up is Medicare, and paying for the urgently needed intelligent national single-payor NOT EMPLOYER CENTERED health care.

Here's what I wrote to Dear John:

John, when did all Americans begin to work in offices?  Think of the  waitresses, the hotel maids, the truck drivers, the stevedores, the  laborers, farm workers, you know those who do hard physical work.  Right!  We should work them until they drop.
 
I'd like to sentence you to hard labor in your sixties and seventies.  How would you like that?
 
For your information, many older Americans are working longer and paying  taxes and not being a total drag on society.  And the NYT pays you to  write stuff like this.  Shame on them.
 

What Janeboatler said. In my e-mail to him,
I pointed out that his first graf smacked of the kind of anecdote-driven analysis reminiscent of the Reagan years.

There's no doubt that the retirement age should be increased.  But this has to be a slow and careful process.

As work becomes less physically stressful, people can work longer and I'm sure most would, if they could.

Flex hours and at-home work would help people want to work longer. 

But as one ages, the stress of work, where one has to commute long distances and work at physically demanding jobs, begins to take a higher and higher  toll.

But make no mistake about it the right wants to abolish social security.  Not mend it; end it.

Tierney is just giving the right more ammo....

hmm your comments are all on the mark with me until the end when you blame the party of labor (ie Dems) for failing since 1980 to protect labor.  This is similar to blaming a rape victim for having the nerve to dress provocatively.  The attack on labor has been carried on because the electorate is so overworked they don't have time to even come close to grasping the issues that will in the long run, affect them negatively.  The lie of the liberal media is obvious when you consider FOX or for that matter the talking heads on say MSNBC who never go into any issue with thoughtfulness in regards to both sides.  And to quote that ole Gipper guy, are you better off today than you were prior to President Bush's election?  I am not, our soldiers are not, our workers are not, our seniors are not.... and so it goes....

Hi. Long time reader, first time piler-on.

What's crazy about Tierney's editorial is not his point, it's his logic. If I understand him correctly, he is saying that we could help stabilize social security by raising the retirement age. Of course that would help the financial stability of the program. And I've seen some very valid arguments that it ought to be over its current age of 65. Fine, JT, do the public some good and make the arguments about higher retirement age. Get us from point A to point B.

But he careens through his column like a keystone cop. What in the heck does Chile have to do with raising the retirement age? What do the 2% of seniors – those that are genetic mutants able to climb the billygoat trails in the Burgh – have to say about the abilities of the 98% of most people that age?

That opening argument – the one about senior atheletes – is a lot of fun to pick apart. You know, my sister used to tell me that girls were naturally better at tennis because, at three years older in elementary school and twice my size, she could kick my butt. JT seems to be falling victim to attribution error, too. And it’s sad. This sort of thing is really beneath a NY Times writer. It’s low quality work. I've read 11th grade English papers built with better logic.

If Tierney wants to talk about Chile, then we should talk about Norway. Equally appropriate.

I' m actually glad Tierney came out and said something that the left should be attacking. The right honestly believes that work is the point of life. It isn't. We weren't born to hang out in offices and, as another poster here pointed out, everyone doesn't have a cushy office job anyway.

He starts with an example about the National Senior's Games and says, "Hey, those people should be working and not out enjoying themselves." That's what he said. Never mind that we don't know the players are retirees, let's assume they are. They still worked for a majority of their adult lives and now their reward is to be able to devote their time to competitive biking or javelin throwing or whatever. That's a good thing.

Tierney apparently thinks people should work until they can't get out of bed. That'll feel great when death approaches -- a couple of years thinking about everything lost and not accomplished but I'm sure even the office workers will take solace -- I never wrote that novel, but I sure did a great job on my TPS Reports!

Honestly, Democrats are guilty of this too. Tierney claims bipartisan support for longer working years and he's probably right. And I always hear Democrats talking about job creation but never about creating jobs that people like.

The rhetoric of both parties suggests that work is the point of life. Work is important, I admit. It can be gratifying and, obviously, society needs us to work and we need to work. But it's just one part of a fulfilling life and not the most important part. We need some one in Washington to at least acknowledge that Americans do work hard, certainly hard enough, and that they deserve more for their efforts.

"I am not sure we want a military dictator to revamp our retirement system."

Au contraire, maybe this is exactly what Americans want--we elected Bush again after all . . .

No wonder you guys lose lections.

A guy like me comes home early after spending all morning framing up walls in another ticky tacky  Mcmansion, and you have a bunch of suits discussing whether other suits will still be able to sit on their asses to work until they are seventy. It is bad enough having to build crap you will never be able to afford because you assholes won't pay a living wage, but now you think I ought to do it until I'm seventy. Screw you, I'll retire at sixty five and move to Chile.

There are many contradictions here...

First, babyboomers retiring early would not help younger workers. Those people would hold on to their good "office" jobs for longer, and the younger workers would have to wait, therefore reducing the earning power of young workers. Personally, I want some coworkers to retire so I can move up the ladder quicker.

Second, I think the only people that agree with him would be "country club" republicans. This group will retire early and spend decades on the golf course anyway. So what do they need a social insurance program for? You'll only hear them complain when they order steak tartar at the country club and it gets warm while grandma brings it to them on her ez-scooter.

I guess the counterfeit Tierney that worte his last column about the stadium deal for the Jets is gone and the real Tierney is back.  I mean the fake guy actually proposed that it is good for cities to invest in infrastructure like mass transit and so on.  He must have gotten quickly scolded for going off the ranch with a fit of reality based thinking; the best way to get back in the good graces of the Conservative think tanks is the tried and true attack Social Security...

So the fake John Tierney that wrote abotuthe stadium deal didn;t last long, I mean he was advocatign things like the government speding money on infrastructure, mass-transit no less!  He must have gotten a real scolding for going off reservation with reality based commentary; no better way to get back int he good graces of the Conservative think tanks than good ole Social Security bashing...

I had another thought on this.  One great aspect of a defined Social Security benefit is it encourages retirees to spend the money, circulating it back into the economy and consuming stuff.  If you know you are getting X$ per month you don't worry about keeping an outrageously huge nest egg in savings.  If on the other hand your savings has to fund your retirement for an indefinite period you really are only safe if you never touch the principle.  
So Tierney is encouraging people to keep working and prevent the young from getting jobs and to keep hording their savings, a double hit to the economy.

3 points:

1) Social Security already rewards people for staying in the  workforce until 70. For instance, someone born in 1940 is considered fully vested at 65 years and 6 months. However, should that person choose to wait to collect until s/he reaches 70, the monthly benefit will be substantially higher (in my case nearly 33% higher) than if s/he retires at 65.6. There is no increase in monthly benefit for someone choosing to work beyond 70.

2) Young workers are not supporting old people as some sort of charity. They are paying insurance premiums to ensure a basic level of financial security when they become old. Those who are collecting now have paid the legislated premiums throughout their working lives. Anyone who has not contributed to the program for at least 40 quarters is inelegible to collect.

3) The unpaid volunteers who are essential to the running of many of our community organizations come disproportionately from the ranks of the retired.

And, let's not forget... if the social security taxes I pay today help my parents live somewhere other than in the spare room that I don't have when they retire... that's a good thing and makes my taxes seem like a bargain!

We need to ask basic questions, like how much government support should the elderly be entitled to? How much should working Americans be asked to pay in taxes to support the elderly? Does it make sense, as American live longer, that they should be allowed to spend a greater share of their lifetime in retirement, asking others to pay for it?

I'm not sure if that is how the questions should be framed. It assumes that the system will ultimately fail because people live longer or the population fluctuates. We do need to make sure social security as well as Medicare are solvent programs and adjustments to the system are necessary. I seem to recall Clinton trying to do just that (in ’99?) when we had projected surpluses that could have been applied towards that. There is also that shell game that Congress is always playing with SS funds. Have you ever seen the "lockbox" they keep our SS funds in?

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/economy/july-dec01/lockbox_8-22.ht ml

But social security is probably the most successful government program in our history. I am amazed that (especially young) people are even considering scrapping it. I think the Privatizers got a foot in the door when they convinced young workers that social security would be bankrupt by their retirement age anyway. I think it is great that some people are able to retire comfortably, but it is not social security paying for their vacations. Social security is what people depend on to eat. I’ve got to get back to work; another 30 years and I’ll be 80, then I can retire to Pottersville.

This may be exceedingly obvious, yet somehow Tierney misses the point: the retirement age, that "elephant in the room," is already going up.  Look, right here: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/nra.html.  When anyone in my oppressed-by-my-grandma-who-needs-me-to-program-her-DVR generation wants to retire and gain full SS benefits, we're going to need to be 67, already two years older than my grandmother.  Also, Tierney fails to point out (selective use of evidence?  I am shocked.  Shocked.) that all those hordes of lazy old people retiring at 62 take reduced benefits.  The same website gives this example:

"NRA [Normal Retirement Age] is exactly age 66 and if you retire at exactly age 62, there are a total of 48 months of reduction. The reduction for the first 36 months is 5/9 of 36 percent, or 20 percent. The reduction for the remaining 12 months is 5/12 of 12 percent, or 5 percent. Thus, in this example, the total benefit reduction is 25 percent."

Granted, it's incredibly dense, otherwise it wouldn't be approved US jargon, but otherwise it makes the point: those lazy elderly bastards are actually doing me a favor by retiring early, since they take reduced benefits.

I never, ever thought I'd say this, but I miss Safire.

It certainly sounds as if the citizens of the great state of Massachusetts should send Tierney to the unemployment line. Of course his early retirment is supported by the taxpayer. 
<span class="Apple-style-span">"(Congressional retirement)The pension picture is rosy for most of those exiting, although the benefits vary with length of service. Benefit checks begin flowing as early as age 50 if the member has enough years in the program, which counts congressional, executive branch and active duty military service."</span&gt