If we look at life expectancy statistics from the
1930’s we might come to the conclusion that the Social Security program was
designed in such a way that people would work for many years paying in taxes,
but would not live long enough to collect benefits. Life expectancy at
birth in 1930 was indeed only 58 for men and 62 for women,
and the retirement age was 65. But life expectancy at birth in the early
decades of the 20th century was low due mainly to high infant mortality, and someone
who died as a child would never have worked and paid into Social Security.
A more appropriate measure is probably life expectancy after attainment of
adulthood.
As Table 1 in the link below shows, the majority of
Americans who made it to adulthood could expect to live to 65, and those who
did live to 65 could look forward to collecting benefits for many years into
the future. We can observe that for men, for example, almost 54% of the
them could expect to live to age 65 if they survived to age 21, and men
who attained age 65 could expect to collect Social Security benefits for almost
13 years (and the numbers are even higher for women).
https://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html
The child mortality rate in the
United States, for children under the age of five, was 462.9 deaths per
thousand births in 1800. This means that for every thousand babies born in
1800, over 46 percent did not make it to their fifth birthday. Over the course
of the next 220 years, this number has dropped drastically, and the rate has
dropped to its lowest point ever in 2020 where it is just seven deaths per
thousand births. Although the child mortality rate has decreased greatly over
this 220-year period, there were two occasions where it increased; in the
1870s, as a result of the fourth cholera pandemic, smallpox outbreaks, and
yellow fever, and in the late 1910s, due to the Spanish Flu pandemic.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041693/united-states-all-time-child-mortality-rate/
In 1910, the year after my dad was born, the infant mortality
rate was 206.9 per 1,000 births, which is still much higher than today’s rate.
My dad’s generation (the Greatest Generation) suffered through WWI, the Great
Depression, and WWII. As a result, by the time they got to age 65, they justifiably
felt that they had “paid their dues” and were more than eager to retire.
Since Minnesota farmers are tough people, my dad put off retiring from the Post Office until he was 67, and then he worked in the mail room of an insurance company on a part time basis for 5 more years. One of his sisters lived to be 95, and another sister (who lived to be 94) worked well into her 80’s.
I am now 73 years old, a year older than my dad was when he retired
for good, and I don’t have any plans to retire anytime soon. Since 2012, I have
been a substitute teacher for 2 different school districts, and it’s the
easiest job I have had my entire life. Virtually every other sub that I have
met is somewhere in the 70’s, and the oldest one that I have run into was 85. Apart
from the fact that it pays well for the amount of time that you put in, on most
days I am LEARNING something, or TEACHING something to some young high school
kids.
At one point, I thought that I would be able to retire when I
was still in my 50’s, but life had other plans. I DO have friends and relatives
who retired when they were still in their 50’s, but I also have relatives in
their 70’s who have no intention of retiring anytime soon.
The Washington Post this morning published an interesting
article about people who continued to work well beyond 70, and that includes our
current president. His predecessor, incidentally, was 74 last June.
People age 75 and over, including our fresh-on-the-job
president, are the fastest-growing group in the labor force, even though “age discrimination is very real,” said Susan Weinstock, vice president
of financial resilience at AARP.
Although some of the people still working in their 70’s work simply to pay their bills, a lot of them continue to work for other reasons.
Here are some common traits of the people who
just don’t know how to quit:
1)
They see business as pleasure
2)
The exercise and eat healthfully
3)
They manage their stress
4)
They find meaning as “wisdom workers’
Since they are involved with intellect pursuits as well as
physical activity, orchestra conductors tend to live long lives – but so do
actors.
There are NUMEROUS actors who work well into their 80’s – and beyond.
The list below is fairly complete, but does not include Tony
Bennett, who’s still performing at the age of 94, or Martin Sheen, who is still
performing at the age of 81. A few rock musicians, of course, died fairly
young, but the Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Arlo Guthrie, and several others are
still performing well past” normal” retirement age.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/50-of-the-oldest-actors-still-working/ss-BB1aEWtb
When I was a college professor in China, I frequently asked
the students what age they thought would be a good time to stop learning. The
correct answer, as I reminded them, was 88 – and that’s true for the rest of us
as well.
When am I going to retire? Beats me, but it’s not likely to
happen anytime soon.
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