Retirement Age 65 No Longer THE Retirement Age

Retirement Age a Final Decision? Credit: arenacreative

Retirement age of 65 is recommended to be pushed off to age 70 in this CNN video interview.

Professor Alicia Munnell, Director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, says by delaying retirement until age 70 a much larger percentage of American workers will NOT run out of money in retirement.

Here are 3 assumptions that I think are wrong about the discussion in this 3 minute video;

1. We will solve the problem of retirement funding by tacking on a few more working years
2. Having to keep working is a drag
3. Current life spans will be about the same in the future

The first assumption says that there is only one model of life which involves this progression; educate/work/retire/die. Rather, I see with the coming significant increases to healthy life spans, we should see ourselves spreading out the “retirement” and also the education and work. Repeating cylces of training/career-business/self-development, fun, and exploration.

Regarding “work” as an evil activity is partly the result of an attitude of having to work so we can finally get to have fun (i.e. retire). If your work was tied to your passions, it is no longer really work from this point of view.

The “working until age 70” idea assumes we don’t see life spans increase. Advances in medical sciences driven by them becoming information-technologies means very likely accelerating breakthroughs that will keep us healthy and alive for much longer.

One thing I think IS right on in this video is the recommendation to defer the start of Social Security (or in Canada CPP/OAS) in order to receive a much higher benefit. This certainly makes sense in a longer life span world.

Retirement at 65 no longer THE retirement age

Are you risking running out of money in retirement by following the status-quo logic?
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