Child labor? Not quite. The narrow-gauged answer is that unlike most social
insurance systems, the American social security system is supposed to be
self-financing--i.e. it is supposed to be financed from payroll taxes alone and
not take money from general revenues. This means that in the last three social
security "crises"--1977, 1983, and the late 1990s, the conservative drift of
social policy has tried to push back the retirement age, as the only way to make
the fund self-sufficient.
>From a broader perspective, however, you're more on the mark, because what you are
seeing is obeisance to the market, and the increase in the number of hours worked
per year among all Americans regardless of age--up about 250 hours per year since
about 1970.
Joel Blau
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Can anyone tell me why the US economy, reputably the strongest
> and most vibrant (in terms of technological improvement) in the
> world, is increasingly forced to dragoon its aged to work in order to
> maintain the minimal (frequently poverty level) standard of its senior
> citizens? Is this the equivalent of child labour in the Third world?
>
> Paul Phillips,
> Economics,
> University of Manitoba
> >
> > The Social Security retirement age will increase for 150 million working
> > Americans beginning this month, the Social Security Administration said.
> > The increase in the full retirement age begins with individuals born in
> > 1938, whose normal retirement age will be 65 years and 2 months. The age
> > increases in two-month increments for workers born between 1939 and 1943
> > until the retirement age reaches 66 and remains there for all workers born
> > through 1954. For those born after 1954, the retirement age begins to
> > increase again in two-month increments until it reaches age 67 for those
> > born in 1960 or later, the SSA said. The increase in the retirement age was
> > included in the Social Security Amendments of 1983 (Daily Labor Report, Jan.
> > 25, page A-8).
> >
> > DUE OUT TOMORROW: Employment Cost Index -- December 1999
> >
> >
