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This is why Social Security should have stayed linked to the average life expectancy, most would still be working so they couldn't retire unless they had a pension that could last. When it (Social Security) was first enacted in 1965, the average person lived to be 61. By this, one should be age 83 to be given their Social Security. The fact is, instead we kept it at 66 and now the average person lives to 78. Note, right now we have 53,000 people living into their 100's in America. I'm not saying to abolish Social Security, it just needs drastic changes and not privatization.
So you want to raise the SS age? That sounds like a horrible idea.
"I know you are 75 years old, you have worked for the last 57 years, and it is really tough for you to work at your age, but you have to keep working for a few more years."
You can certainly see a trend towards self employment/entrepreneurship in this country.
Being an entrepreneur has become the cool thing for young people.
This wasn't always the case as the cool thing used to be a job with a big corporation and 'climbing the ladder'
More and more are realize they can be better off going their own way versus working for a big corporation.
I've heard that times of recession are when more businesses are started because it's hard to find work, so some are left with no other alternative.
This is an interesting article from Forbes last year stating entreprenuership is at an all time high and that there is a lot of optimism from entrepreneurs U.S. Entrepreneurship Hits Record High - Forbes
Interesting quote from this article that relates to this thread
"I’m wondering if, after the long recession, more Americans are coming to the conclusion that I did, when I started my own business in 2007: The old rules, in which getting traditional job was the smartest career route for many, don’t apply as much anymore. "
There is also a huge trend towards people generating income via services like Uber, TaskRabbit and other similar services. These services allow people the flexibility to work 'on their own time' rather than a structured job.
Of course the big money is in creating an Uber or TaskRabbit as a founder rather than working in it.
Another big trend seems to be social entrepreneurship , while younger people used to be pretty anti business/corporations there has been a major embrace of LOCAL businesses. Local is the new buzzword and consumers have become more aware it seems of the benefits of supporting local businesses.
Of course at the same time there are many people that continue to work for other people, but hard any of them seem to be happy with their jobs. Most Americans Are Unhappy At Work - Forbes
I myself left my job of over 10 years this summer. It was a difficult decision because I didn't really hate my job, just had felt in a rut and stuck at a certain pay level , but entrepreneurship was also something I had wanted to do for a long time. It can be a risk for sure, but the rewards can be much much greater and are pretty much limitless.
I had heard an interesting quote that , "Most people are too busy earning a living to make any money"
How do we have a democracy if 40% of the population is unemployed?
A whole lotta people on the government teat, which means the government is going to be taking a lot more from the producers. Northern Europe is an example but Northern Europe doesn't have a gigantic underclass like we do, so we have some huge problems to sort out.
We're already pretty much there, though.
Social Security Disability + Medicare + Food Stamps + Section 8 (if you can get it) amounts to a extremely high standard of living for someone not doing any productive work whatsoever other than breeding. This is multi-generational in the lower level communities (of every race, for what its worth).
Why do you lack reading comprehension skills? I never said or implied anything of the sort.
As you can tell, however, I am concerned about the quality of education in America. As you may or may not know, reading skills are important. And your post is concerning if it is a representation of today's Americans.
People use the "you hate America or Americans" rhetoric the same as anything being racist or sexist. Both sides however can use that insult.
So you want to raise the SS age? That sounds like a horrible idea.
"I know you are 75 years old, you have worked for the last 57 years, and it is really tough for you to work at your age, but you have to keep working for a few more years."
And does keeping it at 66/7 despite the fact you will likely live at least 12/3 years on it, not including if you are able to live into your hundreds. More people are living longer and it will only get worse with the boomers being such a large generational cohort. I am trying to say that as non anti boomer as possible.
Europe does have an underclass. We can talk about civil strife in the USA to a point but we don't hold anything on Europe. Pogroms, genocide, wars of religion. Even in the modern day you had Srebranica. Then there's the Irish vs English, German vs Turk, French vs. Algerian, everyone vs. the Roma etc.
Agreed. We all should just have tiny houses with LED lighting, bicycles in the driveway, co-ops on the corner, backyard gardens, chickens, stuff like that. Let suburbia disappear, malls disappear, 6 lane highways disappear.
we can dream I guess!
But i want to keep my car....am I being hypocritical?
So you want to raise the SS age? That sounds like a horrible idea.
"I know you are 75 years old, you have worked for the last 57 years, and it is really tough for you to work at your age, but you have to keep working for a few more years."
I think the age needs to be raised too, but only for people under a certain age.
For example, raise the SS age to 70 or 75 for everyone currently under the age of 35-40. Keep it as it is for those over 40.
But you can also say that many jobs people will do in 20 years do not exist today. I can actually name a few roles in IT that didn't exist 8-10 years ago.
That said - I think one of the contributing factors is population. Which will probably cause more problems than just lack of jobs.
Don't rely on high tech jobs to provide employment for people. For instance, IT employs about the same number of people today as it did in 1990.
Could very well be true---you can't have a country with 30-40% unemployment, which seems to be the way we're headed..
Right now we have 57% unemployment. Only 43% of adult Americans hold a job of any kind. I fully expect the real rate of unemployment to reach 65% within the next 20 years. It is going to be up to the robots to support the humans. Expect the owners of the robots to scream like raped eagles about it.
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, stuff like that. Let suburbia disappear, malls disappear, 6 lane highways disappear.
