The Atlantic had what I would describe as a very left leaning article about lowering the retirement age in the US while increasing payroll taxes to pay for it and to cover the expected shortfall in Social Security due to hit in 10-12 years. For the record, I am very centrist. Some conservative ideas appeal to me as do some liberal ideas. It is not logical to me to agree with everything one political ideology believes in.
I shared that article on Facebook noting that the prevailing wind is an increase in the retirement age and other "fixes" that might adversely effect a lot of people. It's on us at this point if we get blindsided by some change that hurts us individually. No one should be surprised that something bad might happen so prepare accordingly.
The Atlantic also noted that the more common talking point of raising the retirement age disproportionately hurts blue collar workers because the body usually can't do the same work at 60 that it could at younger ages and raising the retirement age also hurts people who have less money, less economic opportunity. Those folks tend to need their SS checks at younger ages. That makes intuitive sense to me, at least I think that is a reasonable conclusion. I'm not saying I am in favor of lowering or raising the retirement age, just agreeing with who is more damaged if they do it.
Contrast that with a kind of long read from the Wall Street Journal. It was short anecdotes from older white collar workers who are planning to never retire. It supports the Atlantic's idea that wealthier white collar workers have more optionality when it comes to continuing to work. Wealthier white collar workers probably makes up a larger portion of the WSJ's reader base so writing from that perspective, for their audience makes sense.
Many of the anecdotes focused on similar points of needing to use it so you don't lose it as a big driver to continuing to work as opposed to financial need. I've been very transparent over almost 20 years of blogging that I don't want to retire in any sort of traditional sense. Staying physically active, mentally engaged, seeking purpose are all components of successful aging. Some sort of work or vocation seems like the best way to get at least two of those, maybe you need to budget time for working out and (for me) hiking.
I'm not even sure my thoughts on what's best for me are even evolving, I don't plan to disengage from markets ever. That's how I felt 20 years ago and still do.
I have become more interested in trying to inoculate against the unexpected which has nothing to do with career enjoyment. This was a vague concept, something unexpected could happen but I had a brush with that very thing earlier this year when the partners at the firm I've been with since 2004 each got in different types of trouble. This was a personal black swan.
If you are comfortable in your situation like maybe you're on track with having enough money, you love what you do and you have your health, then maybe like me, the biggest risk you face is something totally unexpected.
Friends who are professional firefighters know their are health risks related to duty-related cancers. Pretty sure, they all know about that. So not entirely unexpected even if still awful. The pension system for firefighters here has been woefully underfunded. I don't know if that is widely known or not. I don't know when it will matter, maybe never, maybe soon, but it looms out there as a threat, maybe a black swan for some retired firefighters or soon to be if benefits get cut.
I'm a big believer in cultivating options over time as a form of resilience against the unexpected.
Of course, some people, maybe the majority, do want to move on from their primary careers. Ok, but that doesn't do away with the need to have purpose and stay engaged somehow. I've quipped before that waking up on day one of retirement and saying to yourself "ok, now what am I going to do" is likely to end very badly.
This gets talked about some but maybe not enough, retiring can be a psychologically difficult thing. Without any planning, I don't mean financial, retirement is more of an ending and yeah, that sounds difficult to me. When planned thoughtfully, retirement probably isn't even the best word. You're moving to the next chapter or transitioning to the next phase or maybe can give more time to extra curricular activities you've already been doing.
Whether or not you get paid for giving more time to your extra curricular activities doesn't have to matter depending on how well you planned financially. Someone in the WSJ piece was quoted as saying about his wife "volunteering is not her thing, why work and not get paid?" If you know me at all through my blog posts, you might be able to guess what an awful, selfish sentiment I think that is.
Everyone should do whatever the hell they want to do of course but the big takeaway from this post is that people who are overly reliant on a singular outcome to make their futures work, like SS being there exactly as advertised, are making themselves vulnerable to their own black swan. I would encourage anyone to avoid that sort of plan.
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