Reflective paper on personal learning and growth

Forced Early Retirement & Employment -- the Catch

Retirement & the Changing WorkForce

Catch

A logical paradox arising from a situation in which an individual needs something that can only be acquired by not being in that very situation that will allow access to what is needed.

Older American workers are in a quandary and embroiled in a policy making conundrum. Social Security funding is not expected to keep up with the current and future payout to beneficiaries. Fearful policymakers, frustrated economists, and pessimistic actuarial have cobbled together public policy that reflects the multiple and competing exigencies. Older Americans are encouraged to work longer by a Social Security schedule that is lowest at earliest payout and has pushed the official retirement age to 66 -- with regular and loud threats to push it higher still. For someone retiring at age 62 years who was born between 1943 and 1954, the percentage loss of benefits is 25%, while someone retiring at 62 years who was born in 1960, the percentage loss of benefits for early retirement is 30% (McCormally, 2011).

In the real world of labor economics -- jobs are simply not available or not given to older workers. Let's take a look at what privileged younger generations say to their older counterparts: "Pay for your retirement by working longer-fix the Social Security system you paid into by paying into it some more." "Why didn't you save more for retirement? Did you have your head in the sand?" Counter these policy changes with the competitive rhetoric of the corporate world: "We're a fresh new company populated by young, energetic associates." And the disillusioned older workers lament: "I always thought I'd get to retire like my dad -- with a house I owned after paying off a mortgage, with a car that I owned which would last well into my retirement years, and with a pension that would allow me to experience the leisure I worked so hard all my life to experience. I put my kids through college, bought their first cars, paid for their weddings and their trips to Europe to see the world before they settled down. And now they look at me like I was stupid and blind not to have socked away more money. I'm thinking now that I should have made them work two to three jobs simultaneously every summer to pay for it all themselves. I never planned for the fact that the bottom would fall out of the national economy."

The Bureau of Labor Statistics ("The Unemployment Situation," 2011) presents employment / unemployment data by sex, race or ethnicity, and age. Interestingly, the aggregation of age related data makes the data practically meaningless. Data is reported for men and women 16 to 19, over 20, 16 to 64. Data for people over 64 is reported once -- in the data category for people with disabilities or without disabilities. For example, for people over 64 of both sexes without disabilities, there were 348,000 people in October of 2010; the number increased to 427,000 by October of 2011. The unemployment rate for this aggregate group was 5.8% in 2010 and 6.6% in 2011. Those not considered to be in the labor force for the same period of time were 20,969,000 and 21,318, 000, respectively ("The Unemployment Situation," 2011). For employment and unemployment indicators, the data has been disaggregated by age, usually in ten-year increments. But the data tells us little. Unemployment information is difficult to collect and is generally obfuscated by institutional data collection definitions, procedures, and systems.