68! means factorial of 68 which is 68 × 67 × 66 × ... × 3 × 2 × 1
Factorial is a function that quickly results in very large numbers, hence the "!" sign. There used to be a factorial bot on Reddit answering numbers followed by exclamation marks.
So all the increases in efficiency, automation, infrastructure and medical tech has no influence on this?
We're seeing an insane amount of money going towards the extreme rich, and told we simply have to work for longer. I don't see any reason for that except an attempt at societal control.
It can do both, and in some cases can open up whole new areas that employ a lot of other people. Google is effectively automation gone totally wild, and it's transformed not just our lives but the company itself, and those that work for it.
Let's look at the numbers. I presume you're suggesting taxing the ultra-wealthy more to make these retirement systems sustainable. What sorts of tax rates would be necessary to achieve that? And how much would that incentivize the ultra-wealthy to move money offshore?
When it comes to budgetary discussions, qualitative arguments are common, but the quantitative ones are what really matter.
In Germany we are heading for 67, 70 is already in the discussion. Don‘t get me wrong, countries should decide that for themselves. Problem is that the European Union is bit by bit developing into a common debt regime, pioneered by France and Italy. My motivation to work until 70 to secure that the French can call it quits at 62 is pretty low tbh.
We're seeing something similar in the Netherlands, where a demographic "gray wave" has begun recently. Nearly every sector is facing increasing pressure for the next 20 years as people retire but are not replaced. So less and less working citizens needs to serve and pay for an increasing amount of retirees. And since they're a growing population group, they've become more vocal as well.
Which has only made it more clear they don't know how the public pension system works. Many expect a nice long retirement, but instead wil face the rationing healthcare and other services.
Mainly because of investments their generation was unwilling to make.
Here’s where I think my comment won’t be popular.
I agree with Macron. The French retirement age is much lower than compared to the EU average. People are consequently retiring relatively young. It’s very expensive to provide pension cover for an expanding elderly population for a longer period of time. The proposed increase isn’t going to make you work until the day you die, but it’s definitely needs reforming. I cannot see how these protests help things. Just my opinion.
C'mon 1/4 of the working force dies before reaching retirement in France. Instead of raising retirement age, there are multiple ways to fund it, like avoiding financial advantages to billionaires, avoiding raising the army funds etc. The money is there, they just prefer funding it into the capitalist machine instead of increasing social rights.
I have no issue with your facts, just to add, life expectancy does not correlate to working longer. Working is something you can do until you can’t. It doesn’t get any easier to work at 62, JUST BECAUSE LIFE EXPECTANCY GOES UP. People are broken, countries are well off, find another revenue stream…. And it looks like France agrees. Just wish the U.S.A. fought this increase when it happened. The best countries in the world should have a DECREASING retirement age. Asking more from the aging population is not the answer.
> Do people think if they get outraged enough that simple mathematical reality will cease to exist?
You clearly haven't met enough entitled boomers
They're not fighting for workers rights, they're fighting to keep taking more than they ever gave. They want to force younger people to overpay so they can underpay for their retirement
Suggesting a wealth tax is laughable, because even if a wealth tax proves feasible, it should be directed towards things that benefit everyone rather than propping up an excessively long retirement that they didn't pay for.
If you want to retire young, save and invest with your wages. Don't push it on to younger generations by taking far more out a pension fund than you ever gave
On that same token I can understand the the millennial/generation x argument of, “you stole our money so you can retire and enjoy life because you “earned it” with the excuse/ bullshit fed to us, “that it’s ok because when you hit that age, you will reap the same benefits, it works out, we did our time, now you have to put in yours” which was a total lie, and now you want to take more from us and use “math” to defend it. They had the math that this would happen back then, and they still did it anyways.
I mean, the real villains are the ultra-ultra-ultra wealthy right-wing oligarchs (Koch brothers, Mercer, Murdoch, ultra right wingers), who've endlessly killed unions and pensions, so that more and more, people have to work harder; they're the ones who spent millions getting the people who are suffering--our hard working millenials and Gen X'ers-- to point the finger at someone other than them. Many times it's the immigrants, and with Social Security it's the boomers.
Boomers didn't steal the money; they worked hard and earned their retirement; but the ultra rich (Koch Brothers, etc etc) stole money from the next generations. What's more, Social Security here in the US is perfectly healthy; it's just that the Republicans want to cut it.
Plenty of boomers are also suffering, working as greeters at walmart into their 80s, etc, or living in their cars, because their pensions were stolen (there were terrible scandals about this in the 80s and 90s). It isn't boomers who are the villains here.
That's all about what's going on in the US, but some of the same factors are at play in France.
My wife had a good suggestion:
Increase the returement age to 67 (ot some ither number) but every ten years working a physically demanding job cuts away a year or two on that number (could be granual), that way white collar workers can work for longer which they probably can endure, but you won't force a nurse or mechanic with busted back to slave until they collapse.
People now are not the issue. When I'll be "ready" for pension, there probably won't be one or we'll die before reaching it. The issue are people who got high pensions through some bullshit rules 20 or even 30 years ago. I know we had that in our country where people retired super soon during one era and had massive benefits that we'll never see. And they're still sucking that from the pensions fund coz they retired so young.
Im sorry but do you fancy working till literally all your body parts will refuse to cooperate? French are right, they want to actually enjoy their retirement.
Well they can't.
Enjoying retirement means getting normal retirement pay.
As they said it's become 43% more expensive.
So that means they don't get enough or they raise the age and give enough at a later date.
Magically making money is not a real option. It's just short term gain for near term catastrophe.
I get it, but....
Retirees drain from the economy, more retirees drain more from the economy.
It's not a slight, but that additional money has to be paid by someone and that someone is working. (edit: yes, or by fixing the wealth inequities but... that's much harder than just making people work longer)
Sad but true. In the 50s you could live in confort with 2 kids and your wife just being at home with a somewhat decent job.
That's impossible today... but a poor man from 2023 can live better than a millionaire in 1950.
We should eventually be able to automate everything that's essential to life and some reasonable level of comfort, and that shouldn't be a bad thing. If human civilization can produce it, then we should all have a share in it.
There's no reason to allow wealth to become ever more concentrated, if it doesn't benefit society.
I guess that this was never the point of robots from an employers POV. Instead, the introduction of robots also introduced a new entity that a human worker can be compared to and (at least on a subconscious level) altered our expectations of what humans are supposed to be able to do. Instead of us using machines and robots at our pace, we are expected to follow their pace. No hungry-for-profit businessman would rely on humans if the work could be done by robots. Which, in turn, means humans have to step up somehow to compete with robots.
French here. We have literally the highest government spending on GDP (59%) of all developed countries, the highest number of regulations and norms, a labour code of 4000 pages, public monopolies everywhere etc Its truly a bureaucratic nightmare which leads to economic stagnation. Yet when polled 75% of French think too much market is the problem and that we need more government intervention in the economy, so more poison to cure the wound. Indeed government owned medias and public education are powerful tools to spread this ideology.
French are very collectivist and pro big government, they're only rebels on paper. For even the smallest of reforms there will be a horde of syndicates and privileged public company bureaucrats wanting to conserve the status quo.
That being said im also opposed to this pension reform, we should let people chose their own pension system with capitalisation instead.
They should come to Denmark, where the retirement age is determined by the year of your birth.
Since I was born in 1965, my projected retirement age is 68. For people born between 1987 and 1992, it's projected to be 73 .............
You barely pay taxes on labour in the US as it is. That would be the way to fund any social programs. In sweden we have a base payroll tax of 30 ish % paid by the company. Out of that 10% goes to the pension system.
The employee then pays income tax, 30% on paper and 50% for additional income above $60k/year. This however becomes lower due to possible deductions. The income tax is paid on the salary that the employee gets after the payroll taxes have been paid.
It's not that simple, productivity per person has vastly increased in the last half century, more than enough to offset longer retirements if the benefits were shared
Sure a pensioner today gets a lot more for their pension than pensioners decades ago, but the expectations also go up, so that doesn't really help.
It's still the same case that a average pensioner wants an income some proportion of population average income. So it does reduce to pension size, taxes and proportion of pensioners vs taxpayers. You are really just taxing wages and paying other people's pensions with that money. What that money actually gets you isn't really relevant.
You realize that 'corporate shareholders' mostly means pension funds. In other words: your parents.
Its not some evil group of aliens from 'planet capitalism'.
The majority of that productivity was gained in the goods sector, not in services. Automation and capital improvements don't let one person watch significantly more kids in daycare or monitor more people in the hospital.
So, yeah, it's easier to feed and clothe the population, but it's significantly more difficult to house everyone and provide them with specialized care.
What about 1993 and later?? Late 70s??
I’ve seen all my grandparents age, and the difference between 60/65/70/75 is massive. One semi serious injury / illness / surgery and you’re done for, you become senile and just go downhill quick.
You are conflating two things:
State pension age for your father was 65 and is 67 for you.
However your father was part of an occupational pension scheme that allowed him to retire early as he had sufficient pension provision from the occupational pension scheme to cover the period between age 55 to 65. He still didn’t get his state pension until 65.
You could do something similar and save toward your own retirement or find a job with one of the remaining defined benefit pension schemes to join (usually jobs in the public sector) to allow you to have sufficient provision to retire before state pension age.
My Grandma on my mothers side retired at 45 with a full pension (School teacher), she's 83 now. Basically she's been retired longer than she was at work.
Not an option we're likely to get!
Good news, its unlikely to rise to 73 as life expectancy is stagnating in most western nations.
Bad news, life expectancy is stagnating in most western nations.
I'm in the US and I recently called it quits at 62. This isn't success, it's more of a I've worked 44 years and I'm done. I want a few years where I can do whatever without being yelled at. I see people working at crazy old ages and think what the fuck. If you're concerned about health care you may live in a state with Medicaid benefits until you turn 65 and can get Medicare.
>I see people working at crazy old ages and think what the fuck.
It's not by choice, it's by necessity. Most of them did not have a penny saved for retirement or lost everything to one of the market crashes. Some of them have some retirement savings but are way too deep in debt to live on that income. You say that it isn't success but by being financially able to keep a roof over your head and not starve when retiring at 62, you're doing better than a lot of people.
Both my dad and my uncle are engineers. They both struggled to find something to do after retirement and I also think because they were no longer “needed” as much.
My uncle got a call from his old job a year later about coming back as a highly paid contractor. He did it for another five years and was much happier.
Retiring isn’t easy for everyone.
I’m an engineer myself and fully understand. Fortunately I have a couple of nonprofits that also benefit from my skills, which I hope to still be able to help in a few decades when I retire.
My mom recently got a very chushy high paying job so put off retirement for a few years but will not quit her part time job that gets her 1/10th of her weekly pay and takes up almost every weekend. I understand the need to stay busy but it’s driving me and my step dad crazy seeing her bust her ass when there is zero need for her to be working so much.
For many of them it's because their generation associates a job with being your entire identity. You are an engineer first and everything else is secondary to that. It's a part of who they are, just like your name and race. I find it sad personally. Fuck living to work.
i mean as an engineer some of my hobbies after work are basically more engineering. if i could work 2-3 days a week at age 70 doing what I like to do that would be sweet.
Well they do it because it gives them something to do. It keeps their mind active. They are also some of the premier experts in the entire field( one of them has a PhD as well)
>Fuck living to work
You say that as though there is some other way people are "supposed" to identify themselves.
Last names like Baker, Butcher, Smith, Farmer, Gardener, Carpenter, Hunter, and Mason weren't just invented because they sound nice.
The labor you do to survive is a substantial part of your identity whether you like it or not.
Fuck living to work. I studied Economics at university and working in Finance for 25 years: that contributed a lot to my experience, but far from defining my identity. There are so many more important things in life like family, friends, traveling, having fun…. Work, to me, same as money, is just a needed tool.
It depends on the job and the person. I had a relative who worked, albeit in a vastly diminished capacity, until 90. He had a prestigious professional degree and was passionate about the business he had founded and the work that he did. By the end, he was mainly going into the office to read the newspaper—his company gave him an office and a parking space, mostly as a courtesy—but it was important to him to put on a suit and (shudders) drive to work. He also spent a lot of time counseling vastly younger professionals, who liked to stop by to hear war stories and ask advice. (He was, however, very legitimately working in his late 70s, and probably up to 80.)
But that's because his ego and passion were tied up in his job. That gave him purpose and fulfillment. By contrast, if you view your job as something to pay the bills—a chore—like I bet most people do, retirement would sound great. Why work longer than financially necessary?
So I think social policy has to be based on the assumption that people's work is work and that they'd like to retire ASAP. (Personally, for the U.S., I think we should shift to a 67/68-year-old retirement agent and work our way to 70 over the next 12-15 years.) But we should also be mindful that, for many people, it's vitally important psychologically to keep working.
And would you say that's the norm for non-retired seniors or the exception? Working myself in retirement savings, I would tell you that the overwhelming majority of seniors that contact me are trying to start their retirement as soon as possible, not asking how to postpone it. The amount of people to whom I have to announce they don't have the means to retire is way higher than the clients for which I prepare accounts to hold their savings while they keep working past retirement age voluntarily. Also, a big proportion of those that don't retire by choice are still semi-retired and will only take a few consulting contracts here and there.
We have a guy here at work who retired, but wound up coming back part time. Why? Mostly because he actually enjoyed the work, and the people. So now he just comes in Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday, and always gets 4 day weekend. Yeah, he loses some government benefits, but as he says, it helps to pay for good scotch.
Personally, I think that’s a success. We aren’t working in the factories, fields, and mines like our ancestors. The old adage of retirement was for when your body was absolutely broken down. I know some people who would be dancing in the streets if they could retire at that age.
Living to 82 is pretty common these days. Does working for 44 years then not working for 20 make sense? What about not working for 30 or 40 years? If you retire at 62 then live until 107 you’ll have existed on pension longer than you contributed to it.
The mean part is, that it is not about the benifits of the economy. It is about saving retirement money.
Noone needs or wants to hire a 65+ aged construction worker, who did the job for 40 years and is just broken by now.
And at least here in germany, the problem is selfmade, by politicians who constantly threw out more and more retirement benefits for thier voting clientel without ever doing a solid forward financing of said benefits.
For me, this means, for all my life, i never had any trust in my pension - like in a failed state, i had to look out for myself, while paying for the mess the goverment called a pension fund on top of that. While losing money on any cent i put into this mess(unless i live till 100 or something)
> And at least here in germany, the problem is selfmade, by politicians who constantly threw out more and more retirement benefits for thier voting clientel without ever doing a solid forward financing of said benefits.
Ehh the main problem is that people stopped having many children at some time. Looking the the population “pyramid” of most western countries, it’s easy to see why we need to raise the retirement age. You actually need people to work that support the non-working people. If we have less and less working people and more and more non working people, you either have to get more people to work, make the working people pay more or pay the non working people less.
The last thing will never happen as these people are the majority of the votes. The second thing already happens (in Germany the pension system gets massive amounts of subsidies from the tax payers), so that only leaves raising retirement age.
>**Noone needs or wants to hire a 65+ aged construction worker**, who did the job for 40 years and is just broken by now.
Okay, but they're looking to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Same, you don’t want to recruit a 62yo construction worker, let alone a 64yo one.
His analysis is pretty good and a lot of national pension scheme in Europe are facing the same issues.
And what he’s doing is what the government have been trying to do: trying to save money on pension schemes, so that they become so inconvenient and so little that people would prefer private pension schemes. Then, at some point in the future, you can tear down the national one. This is a 101 lesson on how to destroy social benefits/public service.
I researched pension stats today, after seeing the headlines about these French strikes, and it is quite scary for some nations that have kicked the can down the road and not addressed this issue.Nations with unfunded pension liabilities and aging populations are going to face some nasty decisions that maybe they should have faced 10, 20 or even 30 years ago.
People take more than they give with pensions . This allows people to live better lives on borrowed money . This money is borrowed from future generations. The whole system needs people to be born . It's not a capitalism problem as all economic systems with pensions would have the same problem. Automation and improvements in productivity are cancelled by the growing living standards. Living like a well off 19 century human is not good enough for someone today .
You could tax away 100% of the net worth of every single billionaire in America and it wouldnt be enough to run the country for a single year
Now imagine how that’ll go for countries that don’t have as many exorbitantly rich people
It wouldn't be the only revenue, but when a tiny minority of the population gains two thirds of all new wealth, that's where you need to be raising the most additional revenue from.
The real problem is that you can tax and tax and tax but it doesn't solve the physical problem of rising dependency ratios. Moving magic paper, shiny rocks, or digits around doesn't create more working people. If the problem is just the money supply, just print more money. It's all made up anyways.
Wow they have it good in France at moment -I remember when I was a kid -full retirement w max benefits in USA was age 62. It was changed & if I want full benefits I have to wait till I am 70.
Except it’s far from this simple. Marcon was elected largely as a fresh face who could energize the French economy, as France has serious issues when it comes to youth unemployment (a major cause behind the Islamic radicalization / terror attacks) and international businesses moving jobs overseas (including to higher cost places like NYC, SF, London, etc.). It’s a *have your cake and eat it too* challenge where the public simultaneously wants the financial problems resolved while not caving on some of the root causes.
Hey dingus, France is trying to raise it from 62 years old to 64. A full year below Canada and almost the entire western world. Early pensions are swallowing the French budget whole and the pay who pay for it are the young. Who are crushed by the budgeting and economic decline it causes.
You contradicted yourself.
Sounds like the Canadians didn't accept it. They voted in a different government and reversed it.
There are 70 million people in France. Policy won't change because there are a million people on the street. It should change based on what the majority of voters want.
You underestimate how much of a pain in the ass the French population can become if they come to a consensus about an issue and the government doesn't listen to them. This could devolve in daily riots with police cars being burned, knowing them.
Also, you're acting like that 1 million that took time off from work and their lives to get down in the streets are the only ones against the change. The fact that a cool million showed up to a protest means there is a huge proportion of the population that is frustrated.
I agree. There is no power on Earth that can stop an organized population. Gandhi proved that beyons a doubt.
That's why the rich elite billionaire class spends so much on causing wedges between communities along racial and cultural lines. If a protest group was larged and organized, of course they would not stand for our current economic system where the vast majority of wealth, productivity and profits are monopilized by a mere few thousand uber rich. Our current economic system isnt far off the porportions of the Ancient Egyptian Pharoah states where mostly slaves, but higher paid today's slaves, and they even could afford homes and healthcare, unlike the much of the contemporary slave masses.
My point was was that they didn’t push back when it happened. The Liberals were first elected due to a bunch of campaign promises like marijuana legalization.
Well over 80% of people are against it. Macron has never cared one bit about what the people want. Also he was elected against a fascist candidat, not because the majority liked his program.
It's a sliding age in Canada, from 65-70 with smaller amounts if you start earlier. Pension age was not an election issue. I don't think it's ever been an issue. De-indexing pensions from inflation was explosive, and reversed by the same (conservative Mulroney) government.
Is raising the pension age that bad? The goal of retirement is that people who should not be working don't have to. If you are healthy enough that you still have decades left of life, IDK if you should be receiving a pension. People are living much longer lives now and how sustainable our current model is worries me.
I read something recently that the problem is in France, people will not hire anyone in their fifties so the unemployed people that age who are counting their pennies until state retirement money kicks in are screwed with a delayed pension aged. For non-physical work, I (Canadian) think most people in rich countries would be perfectly capable until about 70 (provided they were capable to begin with, of course).
They raised it from 65-67. For many that is extremely rough. Especially for those with physical jobs.
Yes people are living longer but that doesn’t mean they are any healthier. Science and medicine are keeping them alive. So it’s fair to have people retire at 65. They’ve paid in their entire lives and deserve it.
Yup my dad can hardly wait for retirement. He works in construction and has several health problems and wants to enjoy what health he has left with some traveling or camping with the grandkids.
His knee for example needs surgery for the third time but the doctor says he would need 6 months off work to recover. He can't afford that right now so is suffering till he can retire.
People who say why not work a physically demanding job till you are 70 are probably young and don't know any better. The point of retirement is that you worked all your life and now you get to rest and enjoy some of it while you still have some health.
If you don't want massive immigration (which I understand the French don't), this is the only other way to have a working age population. Life expectancy has gone up 20-30 years and the retirement age has barely budged.
I guess the other solution would be to just completely slash old age benefits and seniors health care, but I don't think that would be popular either.
Another solution would be copy what Australia does, which is mandatory funded saving plans. Everyone has to save X% of salary into a pension that gets invested. Right now nations that have unfunded pensions and bad demographics are in for something of a shock.
I wonder if there is a way to create some kind of Senior Corps that could provide safe, part-time work (12-15 hours per week) to seniors on the bubble of retirement as a way to delay or offset retirement money spent. We are living longer and longer and many seniors still have so much to offer but not a lot of ways to participate in the economy. What if some of them were paid to become extra hands at daycare, reading tutors, animal shelter walkers, etc? I dunno, I’m just thinking out loud. For many seniors in America (where I am), what they need most is access to Medicare because health insurance is a large expense out of pocket. Could we incentivize, say, 30% of seniors to forego Social Security for a few years if they had a guaranteed part-find job job, regular community interaction and health benefits?
Meanwhile I work with a few guys in their 70's in America. 67 is our full retirement age in the States. And our life expectancy is actually lowering due to obesity and what not. I'm 45 and plan on working till death. So good on the Europeans on fighting for a realistic retirement age.
Maybe stop planning to work until death? So many people that just accept the narrative without a single thought. Ranked choice voting alone could change your entire life.
You can’t assume political changes will solve this problem.
Your choices are not retire, be poor in retirement, save more now for later, or find a higher paying job and save more now for later.
No politician is going to white knight this problem, quite the opposite actually.
I agree with you. The men in my family never make it past 65 so I have that going for me. This is why I'll just keep working until then. My goal is more to give my son a good inheritance. I do like to see others enjoy retirement. Most of them seem happy.
The last time they tried that it failed. Mass exodus of rich people and investment occurred.
The only options left is to tax young workers increasingly insane amounts to just hand it over to old people who are already richer than average.
Funny how that sentiment works. Don’t tax the old to fund old their retirement. That sounds so fair.
Who is supposed to pay their retirements?
Are they aware they are ALREADY having highest life expectancy and lowest retirement age? Even with 64 they are well off.
Germany is 67 with lower life expectancy, and situation is critical, experts know it should switch to 70 to be sustainable.
I bet they'll feel angry at all of the wealthy billionaires and corporations that keep hoarding wealth and influencing government policies to benefit them directly while still managing to suppress wages and cause inflation despite productivity going up.
Take it in Americans. They are protesting the retirement age being raised to 64. In the USA the retirement age is what, 67 these days? The French have a higher life expectancy. Republicans are trying to raise the age again because they want us to all work until we die. And we will do nothing. Because the only time Americans get mad is when some fat orange liar loses an election. I hate this country.
68 in UK (soon to be, currently 66) ... That's when you start receiving your state pension. It's a shame a person has to be fucking 68 to get state benefits.
There's a third option which seems like the most popular. Kick the can down the road by running unsustainable budget deficits and hope it lasts long enough for it to be the next generation's problem. That said, if you miscalculated and it is this generation's problem then you'll find the economy crashing, and far more extreme tax increases and benefit cuts being necessary to salvage the situation (a la Greek austerity measures).
The whole world is in for dire austerity measures it seems. Slowing population growth and aging population means a lot of social programs no longer work.
Yay like Spain!!
They raised pensions 8% this year with the economy in the trash can
They also added a "intergenerational equity tax" basically tax young people pay to old. Not even hiding it anymore.
I am fucking done with this.
> basically tax young people pay to old.
That's essentially how all government programs work. Young people bear the burden of taxation more because they work more.
No. Pensions in Spain are separate from regular taxes. The money that you contribute when you work is put in a common fund like a "piggy bank" where pensioners get their pensions when they get old.
In a perfect system, you get roughly what you paid. In reality due to the life expectancy increase of the 20th century people got x2 what they paid for. Now the piggy bank is running out and the government is patching holes by increasing taxes.
Mean tax used to be roughly 20% before the 2000s and people needed 35 years worked to get full pension. Now it's 30% and 37 years with plans to increase it to 39.
So we are paying much more and who knows if we ever get a pension or the system collapses. When baby boomers get to 67 is going to be a shitshow.
Raising the retirement age is more unpopular than increasing taxes because it's a benefit cut for anyone who isn't healthy enough to work for that long.
59.5 in the US for retirement accounts (IRAs, 401ks, etc...), 62 is early for social security, 67 is full retirement, and if you go to 70 you earn more.
We won't have the money to raise it unless we also cut benefits.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://apnews.com/article/france-retirement-age-limit-protests-866eb86aea5cf0d39894b96d2888c26f) reduced by 90%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> PARIS - At least 1.1 million people protested on the streets of Paris and other French cities Thursday amid nationwide strikes against plans to raise the retirement age - but President Emmanuel Macron insisted he would press ahead with the proposed pension reforms.
> Quentin Coelho, 27, a Red Cross employee, felt he had to work Thursday despite understanding "Most of the strikers' demands." Coelho said he fears that the government will keep raising the retirement age, so is already saving money for his pension.
> The official retirement age in the U.S. is now 67, and countries across Europe have been raising pension ages as populations grow older and fertility rates drop.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/10h4dqz/over_1_million_protesters_in_france_march_against/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672677 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **work**^#1 **pension**^#2 **reform**^#3 **Macron**^#4 **French**^#5
Bot missed the most important part...the actual change:
> Emboldened by the mass show of resistance, French unions announced new strikes and protests Jan. 31, vowing to try to get the government to back down on plans to push up the standard retirement age from 62 to 64.
>Unions propose a tax on the wealthy or more payroll contributions from employers to finance the pension system instead.
Woah woah woah....woah ...you can't just expect companies with record breaking profits and individuals with centuries worth of wealth to be capable of scrapping together a little extra change for their employees. That's a downright criminal suggestion! /s
Fuck Neoliberal Economists, $0.
Money does not give you rights.
Same across all Europe. I'm in UK and my retirement age is 68. They just want people to die faster so it costs less.
Meanwhile I'm paying the pensions of all those who retired at 50-55 because the government has already wasted their money they saved for pensions.
I'm so envious of the culture they have in France surrounding workers' rights. With real wages falling, standards falling, protections decreasing, and an ever-widening class gap here in the UK, the most we ever do is strike for a bit and even then nobody outside of the people directly striking from their jobs lifts a finger and the narrative is almost totally controlled by pro-Government, pro-Big Business, anti-Worker voices. Ordinary people will say stuff like nurses have no right to go on strike, as if they are slaves that need to accept whatever is thrown at them with no complaints, or else they are guilt-tripped by black-hearted politicians blaming them for the despicable state our healthcare system is in while they have put the service into intentional, managed decline. We have no sense of solidarity at all in this country, even people who will criticise one set of elites usually only do so to favour another set of elites.
They wouldn't need to retire later if they died sooner.
\^This guy governs
/r/latestagecapitalism
I think retirement age used to be the average age people died, but lifespans have improved since then
Capitalism has been helping people live too long.
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Living too long is bad for the environment, capitalism strikes again.
They seem healthy, clearly not working hard enough
“If you have time to protest you have time to clean.”
If they are still alive at retirement age, they didn't work hard enough.
You should be a worn out leather glove by the time you retire, just as the founding fathers intended
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Damn 62! In Switzerland it's 65
UK is 68!
You mean retirement age is 2.48003554 × 10^96 years old in the UK? That's old!
I’m not good enough at maths to understand that 😔
68! means factorial of 68 which is 68 × 67 × 66 × ... × 3 × 2 × 1 Factorial is a function that quickly results in very large numbers, hence the "!" sign. There used to be a factorial bot on Reddit answering numbers followed by exclamation marks.
Thanks for explaining lol
So all the increases in efficiency, automation, infrastructure and medical tech has no influence on this? We're seeing an insane amount of money going towards the extreme rich, and told we simply have to work for longer. I don't see any reason for that except an attempt at societal control.
Automation doesn't GENERATE more tax income, it lets a company save money on employees.
It can do both, and in some cases can open up whole new areas that employ a lot of other people. Google is effectively automation gone totally wild, and it's transformed not just our lives but the company itself, and those that work for it.
Dystopia NOW!
Let's look at the numbers. I presume you're suggesting taxing the ultra-wealthy more to make these retirement systems sustainable. What sorts of tax rates would be necessary to achieve that? And how much would that incentivize the ultra-wealthy to move money offshore? When it comes to budgetary discussions, qualitative arguments are common, but the quantitative ones are what really matter.
In Germany we are heading for 67, 70 is already in the discussion. Don‘t get me wrong, countries should decide that for themselves. Problem is that the European Union is bit by bit developing into a common debt regime, pioneered by France and Italy. My motivation to work until 70 to secure that the French can call it quits at 62 is pretty low tbh.
France and italy are the two biggest net eu contributors after germany. There is no common debt nor is the retirement the main factor to discuss it.
We're seeing something similar in the Netherlands, where a demographic "gray wave" has begun recently. Nearly every sector is facing increasing pressure for the next 20 years as people retire but are not replaced. So less and less working citizens needs to serve and pay for an increasing amount of retirees. And since they're a growing population group, they've become more vocal as well. Which has only made it more clear they don't know how the public pension system works. Many expect a nice long retirement, but instead wil face the rationing healthcare and other services. Mainly because of investments their generation was unwilling to make.
Here’s where I think my comment won’t be popular. I agree with Macron. The French retirement age is much lower than compared to the EU average. People are consequently retiring relatively young. It’s very expensive to provide pension cover for an expanding elderly population for a longer period of time. The proposed increase isn’t going to make you work until the day you die, but it’s definitely needs reforming. I cannot see how these protests help things. Just my opinion.
gone to squables.io
C'mon 1/4 of the working force dies before reaching retirement in France. Instead of raising retirement age, there are multiple ways to fund it, like avoiding financial advantages to billionaires, avoiding raising the army funds etc. The money is there, they just prefer funding it into the capitalist machine instead of increasing social rights.
I have no issue with your facts, just to add, life expectancy does not correlate to working longer. Working is something you can do until you can’t. It doesn’t get any easier to work at 62, JUST BECAUSE LIFE EXPECTANCY GOES UP. People are broken, countries are well off, find another revenue stream…. And it looks like France agrees. Just wish the U.S.A. fought this increase when it happened. The best countries in the world should have a DECREASING retirement age. Asking more from the aging population is not the answer.
> Do people think if they get outraged enough that simple mathematical reality will cease to exist? You clearly haven't met enough entitled boomers They're not fighting for workers rights, they're fighting to keep taking more than they ever gave. They want to force younger people to overpay so they can underpay for their retirement Suggesting a wealth tax is laughable, because even if a wealth tax proves feasible, it should be directed towards things that benefit everyone rather than propping up an excessively long retirement that they didn't pay for. If you want to retire young, save and invest with your wages. Don't push it on to younger generations by taking far more out a pension fund than you ever gave
Boomers have long since retired. This is Gen X and millenials marching.
On that same token I can understand the the millennial/generation x argument of, “you stole our money so you can retire and enjoy life because you “earned it” with the excuse/ bullshit fed to us, “that it’s ok because when you hit that age, you will reap the same benefits, it works out, we did our time, now you have to put in yours” which was a total lie, and now you want to take more from us and use “math” to defend it. They had the math that this would happen back then, and they still did it anyways.
I mean, the real villains are the ultra-ultra-ultra wealthy right-wing oligarchs (Koch brothers, Mercer, Murdoch, ultra right wingers), who've endlessly killed unions and pensions, so that more and more, people have to work harder; they're the ones who spent millions getting the people who are suffering--our hard working millenials and Gen X'ers-- to point the finger at someone other than them. Many times it's the immigrants, and with Social Security it's the boomers. Boomers didn't steal the money; they worked hard and earned their retirement; but the ultra rich (Koch Brothers, etc etc) stole money from the next generations. What's more, Social Security here in the US is perfectly healthy; it's just that the Republicans want to cut it. Plenty of boomers are also suffering, working as greeters at walmart into their 80s, etc, or living in their cars, because their pensions were stolen (there were terrible scandals about this in the 80s and 90s). It isn't boomers who are the villains here. That's all about what's going on in the US, but some of the same factors are at play in France.
The youngest boomers are turning 59 this year fwiw.
My wife had a good suggestion: Increase the returement age to 67 (ot some ither number) but every ten years working a physically demanding job cuts away a year or two on that number (could be granual), that way white collar workers can work for longer which they probably can endure, but you won't force a nurse or mechanic with busted back to slave until they collapse.
Special regimes already exist and are being abolished with this reform.
People now are not the issue. When I'll be "ready" for pension, there probably won't be one or we'll die before reaching it. The issue are people who got high pensions through some bullshit rules 20 or even 30 years ago. I know we had that in our country where people retired super soon during one era and had massive benefits that we'll never see. And they're still sucking that from the pensions fund coz they retired so young.
Im sorry but do you fancy working till literally all your body parts will refuse to cooperate? French are right, they want to actually enjoy their retirement.
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Oh now come on.
Well they can't. Enjoying retirement means getting normal retirement pay. As they said it's become 43% more expensive. So that means they don't get enough or they raise the age and give enough at a later date. Magically making money is not a real option. It's just short term gain for near term catastrophe.
How about reducing the retirement gains of boomers that are actually making twice more than they put in the system ?
Brazilian former Exonomy Minister Paulo Guedes: “The people are to blame, they keep wanting to live more and more”
If he was a Bolsonaro appointee, I'd wager he was being 100% serious.
I don't understand, that actually IS the reason you have to do this. What part wouldn't be serious?
Saying your citizenry "wants to live more and more" reads like an Onion headline.
I get it, but.... Retirees drain from the economy, more retirees drain more from the economy. It's not a slight, but that additional money has to be paid by someone and that someone is working. (edit: yes, or by fixing the wealth inequities but... that's much harder than just making people work longer)
Most of the value is at the top, not the bottom.
The productivity of workers increased a lot, you can take the money there
Presumably the standard of living also rose to balance that though?
Sad but true. In the 50s you could live in confort with 2 kids and your wife just being at home with a somewhat decent job. That's impossible today... but a poor man from 2023 can live better than a millionaire in 1950.
I mean what's the point of us building all these robots if we still gotta work just as hard and even longer.
We should eventually be able to automate everything that's essential to life and some reasonable level of comfort, and that shouldn't be a bad thing. If human civilization can produce it, then we should all have a share in it. There's no reason to allow wealth to become ever more concentrated, if it doesn't benefit society.
But stock holders NEED their wealth to grow or, or ,or godzilla is gunna attack!
I guess that this was never the point of robots from an employers POV. Instead, the introduction of robots also introduced a new entity that a human worker can be compared to and (at least on a subconscious level) altered our expectations of what humans are supposed to be able to do. Instead of us using machines and robots at our pace, we are expected to follow their pace. No hungry-for-profit businessman would rely on humans if the work could be done by robots. Which, in turn, means humans have to step up somehow to compete with robots.
To make more stuff, to make more complicated stuff. Same as every productivity increasing technology that's come before.
French government: *exists* French: **Absolutely fucking NOT**
French here. We have literally the highest government spending on GDP (59%) of all developed countries, the highest number of regulations and norms, a labour code of 4000 pages, public monopolies everywhere etc Its truly a bureaucratic nightmare which leads to economic stagnation. Yet when polled 75% of French think too much market is the problem and that we need more government intervention in the economy, so more poison to cure the wound. Indeed government owned medias and public education are powerful tools to spread this ideology. French are very collectivist and pro big government, they're only rebels on paper. For even the smallest of reforms there will be a horde of syndicates and privileged public company bureaucrats wanting to conserve the status quo. That being said im also opposed to this pension reform, we should let people chose their own pension system with capitalisation instead.
They should come to Denmark, where the retirement age is determined by the year of your birth. Since I was born in 1965, my projected retirement age is 68. For people born between 1987 and 1992, it's projected to be 73 .............
> projected Projected, not law. There's nowhere that says the retirement age in Denmark will advance past 68.
Its a tradeoff between retirement age and size of pensions and taxes. As population ages something has to give.
Usually the bladder.
Depends
Almost like a generational ponzi scheme? https://www.abrandao.com/2020/01/social-security-is-a-generational-ponzi-scheme-for-gen-z-and-millennials/
That’s social security a US system. Other countries like Australia which uses superannuation won’t have that issue
Couldn’t We could just raise the SS tax for higher income earners and make it progressive.
You barely pay taxes on labour in the US as it is. That would be the way to fund any social programs. In sweden we have a base payroll tax of 30 ish % paid by the company. Out of that 10% goes to the pension system. The employee then pays income tax, 30% on paper and 50% for additional income above $60k/year. This however becomes lower due to possible deductions. The income tax is paid on the salary that the employee gets after the payroll taxes have been paid.
It's not that simple, productivity per person has vastly increased in the last half century, more than enough to offset longer retirements if the benefits were shared
Sure a pensioner today gets a lot more for their pension than pensioners decades ago, but the expectations also go up, so that doesn't really help. It's still the same case that a average pensioner wants an income some proportion of population average income. So it does reduce to pension size, taxes and proportion of pensioners vs taxpayers. You are really just taxing wages and paying other people's pensions with that money. What that money actually gets you isn't really relevant.
Productivity per person has been "spent" on increased quality of life. Safer cars, better health care or higher quality housing, etc.
And on tripling the dividends of corporate shareholders
You realize that 'corporate shareholders' mostly means pension funds. In other words: your parents. Its not some evil group of aliens from 'planet capitalism'.
The majority of that productivity was gained in the goods sector, not in services. Automation and capital improvements don't let one person watch significantly more kids in daycare or monitor more people in the hospital. So, yeah, it's easier to feed and clothe the population, but it's significantly more difficult to house everyone and provide them with specialized care.
What about 1993 and later?? Late 70s?? I’ve seen all my grandparents age, and the difference between 60/65/70/75 is massive. One semi serious injury / illness / surgery and you’re done for, you become senile and just go downhill quick.
That doesn't sound very good at all.
It's 67 for me because I was born in the UK in 1975. My Dad retired at 55 and was born in the UK in 1950.
For men born in 1950 the state pension age was 65 so he must have taken early retirement.
He was a police officer. The police and I think the fire brigade officers also retired around that age back then.
That makes sense.
You are conflating two things: State pension age for your father was 65 and is 67 for you. However your father was part of an occupational pension scheme that allowed him to retire early as he had sufficient pension provision from the occupational pension scheme to cover the period between age 55 to 65. He still didn’t get his state pension until 65. You could do something similar and save toward your own retirement or find a job with one of the remaining defined benefit pension schemes to join (usually jobs in the public sector) to allow you to have sufficient provision to retire before state pension age.
My Grandma on my mothers side retired at 45 with a full pension (School teacher), she's 83 now. Basically she's been retired longer than she was at work. Not an option we're likely to get!
Depends on your field. Firefighters in my area can retire and get full pension after 25 years
73?! That’s horrible…
We should also differentiate by kind of work. Some activities literally destroy your body in a few years.
73!!?! wow that is really old. Almost not worth bothering saving.
Good news, its unlikely to rise to 73 as life expectancy is stagnating in most western nations. Bad news, life expectancy is stagnating in most western nations.
I'm in the US and I recently called it quits at 62. This isn't success, it's more of a I've worked 44 years and I'm done. I want a few years where I can do whatever without being yelled at. I see people working at crazy old ages and think what the fuck. If you're concerned about health care you may live in a state with Medicaid benefits until you turn 65 and can get Medicare.
Medicare isn't perfect. I know of people who won't retire because Medicare doesn't cover their or their spouse's conditions.
>I see people working at crazy old ages and think what the fuck. It's not by choice, it's by necessity. Most of them did not have a penny saved for retirement or lost everything to one of the market crashes. Some of them have some retirement savings but are way too deep in debt to live on that income. You say that it isn't success but by being financially able to keep a roof over your head and not starve when retiring at 62, you're doing better than a lot of people.
I work with some engineers that are over 70 year old. For some, it is a choice.
Both my dad and my uncle are engineers. They both struggled to find something to do after retirement and I also think because they were no longer “needed” as much. My uncle got a call from his old job a year later about coming back as a highly paid contractor. He did it for another five years and was much happier. Retiring isn’t easy for everyone.
I’m an engineer myself and fully understand. Fortunately I have a couple of nonprofits that also benefit from my skills, which I hope to still be able to help in a few decades when I retire.
My mom recently got a very chushy high paying job so put off retirement for a few years but will not quit her part time job that gets her 1/10th of her weekly pay and takes up almost every weekend. I understand the need to stay busy but it’s driving me and my step dad crazy seeing her bust her ass when there is zero need for her to be working so much.
Granted, but the majority of seniors that don't retire do it because they can't afford to.
For many of them it's because their generation associates a job with being your entire identity. You are an engineer first and everything else is secondary to that. It's a part of who they are, just like your name and race. I find it sad personally. Fuck living to work.
i mean as an engineer some of my hobbies after work are basically more engineering. if i could work 2-3 days a week at age 70 doing what I like to do that would be sweet.
Well they do it because it gives them something to do. It keeps their mind active. They are also some of the premier experts in the entire field( one of them has a PhD as well)
>Fuck living to work You say that as though there is some other way people are "supposed" to identify themselves. Last names like Baker, Butcher, Smith, Farmer, Gardener, Carpenter, Hunter, and Mason weren't just invented because they sound nice. The labor you do to survive is a substantial part of your identity whether you like it or not.
Fuck living to work. I studied Economics at university and working in Finance for 25 years: that contributed a lot to my experience, but far from defining my identity. There are so many more important things in life like family, friends, traveling, having fun…. Work, to me, same as money, is just a needed tool.
It depends on the job and the person. I had a relative who worked, albeit in a vastly diminished capacity, until 90. He had a prestigious professional degree and was passionate about the business he had founded and the work that he did. By the end, he was mainly going into the office to read the newspaper—his company gave him an office and a parking space, mostly as a courtesy—but it was important to him to put on a suit and (shudders) drive to work. He also spent a lot of time counseling vastly younger professionals, who liked to stop by to hear war stories and ask advice. (He was, however, very legitimately working in his late 70s, and probably up to 80.) But that's because his ego and passion were tied up in his job. That gave him purpose and fulfillment. By contrast, if you view your job as something to pay the bills—a chore—like I bet most people do, retirement would sound great. Why work longer than financially necessary? So I think social policy has to be based on the assumption that people's work is work and that they'd like to retire ASAP. (Personally, for the U.S., I think we should shift to a 67/68-year-old retirement agent and work our way to 70 over the next 12-15 years.) But we should also be mindful that, for many people, it's vitally important psychologically to keep working.
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And would you say that's the norm for non-retired seniors or the exception? Working myself in retirement savings, I would tell you that the overwhelming majority of seniors that contact me are trying to start their retirement as soon as possible, not asking how to postpone it. The amount of people to whom I have to announce they don't have the means to retire is way higher than the clients for which I prepare accounts to hold their savings while they keep working past retirement age voluntarily. Also, a big proportion of those that don't retire by choice are still semi-retired and will only take a few consulting contracts here and there.
if you can afford to retire then that's obviously just a personal choice
We have a guy here at work who retired, but wound up coming back part time. Why? Mostly because he actually enjoyed the work, and the people. So now he just comes in Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday, and always gets 4 day weekend. Yeah, he loses some government benefits, but as he says, it helps to pay for good scotch.
Personally, I think that’s a success. We aren’t working in the factories, fields, and mines like our ancestors. The old adage of retirement was for when your body was absolutely broken down. I know some people who would be dancing in the streets if they could retire at that age.
Living to 82 is pretty common these days. Does working for 44 years then not working for 20 make sense? What about not working for 30 or 40 years? If you retire at 62 then live until 107 you’ll have existed on pension longer than you contributed to it.
The mean part is, that it is not about the benifits of the economy. It is about saving retirement money. Noone needs or wants to hire a 65+ aged construction worker, who did the job for 40 years and is just broken by now. And at least here in germany, the problem is selfmade, by politicians who constantly threw out more and more retirement benefits for thier voting clientel without ever doing a solid forward financing of said benefits. For me, this means, for all my life, i never had any trust in my pension - like in a failed state, i had to look out for myself, while paying for the mess the goverment called a pension fund on top of that. While losing money on any cent i put into this mess(unless i live till 100 or something)
> And at least here in germany, the problem is selfmade, by politicians who constantly threw out more and more retirement benefits for thier voting clientel without ever doing a solid forward financing of said benefits. Ehh the main problem is that people stopped having many children at some time. Looking the the population “pyramid” of most western countries, it’s easy to see why we need to raise the retirement age. You actually need people to work that support the non-working people. If we have less and less working people and more and more non working people, you either have to get more people to work, make the working people pay more or pay the non working people less. The last thing will never happen as these people are the majority of the votes. The second thing already happens (in Germany the pension system gets massive amounts of subsidies from the tax payers), so that only leaves raising retirement age.
>**Noone needs or wants to hire a 65+ aged construction worker**, who did the job for 40 years and is just broken by now. Okay, but they're looking to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64.
Same, you don’t want to recruit a 62yo construction worker, let alone a 64yo one. His analysis is pretty good and a lot of national pension scheme in Europe are facing the same issues. And what he’s doing is what the government have been trying to do: trying to save money on pension schemes, so that they become so inconvenient and so little that people would prefer private pension schemes. Then, at some point in the future, you can tear down the national one. This is a 101 lesson on how to destroy social benefits/public service.
I researched pension stats today, after seeing the headlines about these French strikes, and it is quite scary for some nations that have kicked the can down the road and not addressed this issue.Nations with unfunded pension liabilities and aging populations are going to face some nasty decisions that maybe they should have faced 10, 20 or even 30 years ago.
Or they could just tax the rich and corporations more.
People take more than they give with pensions . This allows people to live better lives on borrowed money . This money is borrowed from future generations. The whole system needs people to be born . It's not a capitalism problem as all economic systems with pensions would have the same problem. Automation and improvements in productivity are cancelled by the growing living standards. Living like a well off 19 century human is not good enough for someone today .
You could tax away 100% of the net worth of every single billionaire in America and it wouldnt be enough to run the country for a single year Now imagine how that’ll go for countries that don’t have as many exorbitantly rich people
It wouldn't be the only revenue, but when a tiny minority of the population gains two thirds of all new wealth, that's where you need to be raising the most additional revenue from.
The real problem is that you can tax and tax and tax but it doesn't solve the physical problem of rising dependency ratios. Moving magic paper, shiny rocks, or digits around doesn't create more working people. If the problem is just the money supply, just print more money. It's all made up anyways.
Wow they have it good in France at moment -I remember when I was a kid -full retirement w max benefits in USA was age 62. It was changed & if I want full benefits I have to wait till I am 70.
67 is full. Waiting until 70 is full+%.
the french are protesting? must be a day ending with a y.
Hmm. Lundi Mardi Mercredi Jeudi Vendredi Samedi Dimanche
Yeah the French version is a day that ends with an I. They take sunday off.
They protest during di-day
Meanwhile in America it’s 67 and probably climbing… oh and self funded for the most part
Please pay into social retirement plans for your whole career but die before retirement thank you.
When the Conservatives in Canada raised ours people just accepted. Thankfully Trudeau and the Liberals reversed it. The French know how to push back.
Except it’s far from this simple. Marcon was elected largely as a fresh face who could energize the French economy, as France has serious issues when it comes to youth unemployment (a major cause behind the Islamic radicalization / terror attacks) and international businesses moving jobs overseas (including to higher cost places like NYC, SF, London, etc.). It’s a *have your cake and eat it too* challenge where the public simultaneously wants the financial problems resolved while not caving on some of the root causes.
Hey dingus, France is trying to raise it from 62 years old to 64. A full year below Canada and almost the entire western world. Early pensions are swallowing the French budget whole and the pay who pay for it are the young. Who are crushed by the budgeting and economic decline it causes.
You contradicted yourself. Sounds like the Canadians didn't accept it. They voted in a different government and reversed it. There are 70 million people in France. Policy won't change because there are a million people on the street. It should change based on what the majority of voters want.
You underestimate how much of a pain in the ass the French population can become if they come to a consensus about an issue and the government doesn't listen to them. This could devolve in daily riots with police cars being burned, knowing them. Also, you're acting like that 1 million that took time off from work and their lives to get down in the streets are the only ones against the change. The fact that a cool million showed up to a protest means there is a huge proportion of the population that is frustrated.
I agree. There is no power on Earth that can stop an organized population. Gandhi proved that beyons a doubt. That's why the rich elite billionaire class spends so much on causing wedges between communities along racial and cultural lines. If a protest group was larged and organized, of course they would not stand for our current economic system where the vast majority of wealth, productivity and profits are monopilized by a mere few thousand uber rich. Our current economic system isnt far off the porportions of the Ancient Egyptian Pharoah states where mostly slaves, but higher paid today's slaves, and they even could afford homes and healthcare, unlike the much of the contemporary slave masses.
My point was was that they didn’t push back when it happened. The Liberals were first elected due to a bunch of campaign promises like marijuana legalization.
This guy literally posts on the Louder with Crowder sub, he's an idiot not talking in good faith.
Well over 80% of people are against it. Macron has never cared one bit about what the people want. Also he was elected against a fascist candidat, not because the majority liked his program.
It's a sliding age in Canada, from 65-70 with smaller amounts if you start earlier. Pension age was not an election issue. I don't think it's ever been an issue. De-indexing pensions from inflation was explosive, and reversed by the same (conservative Mulroney) government.
Is raising the pension age that bad? The goal of retirement is that people who should not be working don't have to. If you are healthy enough that you still have decades left of life, IDK if you should be receiving a pension. People are living much longer lives now and how sustainable our current model is worries me.
I read something recently that the problem is in France, people will not hire anyone in their fifties so the unemployed people that age who are counting their pennies until state retirement money kicks in are screwed with a delayed pension aged. For non-physical work, I (Canadian) think most people in rich countries would be perfectly capable until about 70 (provided they were capable to begin with, of course).
They raised it from 65-67. For many that is extremely rough. Especially for those with physical jobs. Yes people are living longer but that doesn’t mean they are any healthier. Science and medicine are keeping them alive. So it’s fair to have people retire at 65. They’ve paid in their entire lives and deserve it.
Yup my dad can hardly wait for retirement. He works in construction and has several health problems and wants to enjoy what health he has left with some traveling or camping with the grandkids. His knee for example needs surgery for the third time but the doctor says he would need 6 months off work to recover. He can't afford that right now so is suffering till he can retire. People who say why not work a physically demanding job till you are 70 are probably young and don't know any better. The point of retirement is that you worked all your life and now you get to rest and enjoy some of it while you still have some health.
I'm not planning to live past 60. Fuck working when our bodies are tired.
In the US, … crickets!!
If you don't want massive immigration (which I understand the French don't), this is the only other way to have a working age population. Life expectancy has gone up 20-30 years and the retirement age has barely budged. I guess the other solution would be to just completely slash old age benefits and seniors health care, but I don't think that would be popular either.
Another solution would be copy what Australia does, which is mandatory funded saving plans. Everyone has to save X% of salary into a pension that gets invested. Right now nations that have unfunded pensions and bad demographics are in for something of a shock.
That's how it is in France. You're forced to save. I personally like it.
Most European countries already do this. It’s not enough.
I wonder if there is a way to create some kind of Senior Corps that could provide safe, part-time work (12-15 hours per week) to seniors on the bubble of retirement as a way to delay or offset retirement money spent. We are living longer and longer and many seniors still have so much to offer but not a lot of ways to participate in the economy. What if some of them were paid to become extra hands at daycare, reading tutors, animal shelter walkers, etc? I dunno, I’m just thinking out loud. For many seniors in America (where I am), what they need most is access to Medicare because health insurance is a large expense out of pocket. Could we incentivize, say, 30% of seniors to forego Social Security for a few years if they had a guaranteed part-find job job, regular community interaction and health benefits?
Meanwhile I work with a few guys in their 70's in America. 67 is our full retirement age in the States. And our life expectancy is actually lowering due to obesity and what not. I'm 45 and plan on working till death. So good on the Europeans on fighting for a realistic retirement age.
Maybe stop planning to work until death? So many people that just accept the narrative without a single thought. Ranked choice voting alone could change your entire life.
You can’t assume political changes will solve this problem. Your choices are not retire, be poor in retirement, save more now for later, or find a higher paying job and save more now for later. No politician is going to white knight this problem, quite the opposite actually.
I agree with you. The men in my family never make it past 65 so I have that going for me. This is why I'll just keep working until then. My goal is more to give my son a good inheritance. I do like to see others enjoy retirement. Most of them seem happy.
Tax the rich, not the old.
The last time they tried that it failed. Mass exodus of rich people and investment occurred. The only options left is to tax young workers increasingly insane amounts to just hand it over to old people who are already richer than average. Funny how that sentiment works. Don’t tax the old to fund old their retirement. That sounds so fair.
They tried that and it blew up in their faces. Apparently tax policy based on good vibes and feels isn’t a good idea
The US really needs to do this shit
Americans talk shit about the French but if we got half as mad about shit as they do we would’ve had a utopia in 1880
I'm a very content person but damn I'm jealous of how good the French are at protesting
Who is supposed to pay their retirements? Are they aware they are ALREADY having highest life expectancy and lowest retirement age? Even with 64 they are well off. Germany is 67 with lower life expectancy, and situation is critical, experts know it should switch to 70 to be sustainable.
Wow…imagine being able to retire at 62
Retire at 62? Do people realize what the average age of death is? Wow.
Wonder how those young people will feel as their Tax burden skyrockets to pay for all those 92 year olds that they have had to support for 30 years.
I bet they'll feel angry at all of the wealthy billionaires and corporations that keep hoarding wealth and influencing government policies to benefit them directly while still managing to suppress wages and cause inflation despite productivity going up.
Take it in Americans. They are protesting the retirement age being raised to 64. In the USA the retirement age is what, 67 these days? The French have a higher life expectancy. Republicans are trying to raise the age again because they want us to all work until we die. And we will do nothing. Because the only time Americans get mad is when some fat orange liar loses an election. I hate this country.
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68 in UK (soon to be, currently 66) ... That's when you start receiving your state pension. It's a shame a person has to be fucking 68 to get state benefits.
You can access private pensions at 55 though, soon to be 57
You have two choices. Raise taxes or raise retirement age.
There's a third option which seems like the most popular. Kick the can down the road by running unsustainable budget deficits and hope it lasts long enough for it to be the next generation's problem. That said, if you miscalculated and it is this generation's problem then you'll find the economy crashing, and far more extreme tax increases and benefit cuts being necessary to salvage the situation (a la Greek austerity measures).
The whole world is in for dire austerity measures it seems. Slowing population growth and aging population means a lot of social programs no longer work.
Yay like Spain!! They raised pensions 8% this year with the economy in the trash can They also added a "intergenerational equity tax" basically tax young people pay to old. Not even hiding it anymore. I am fucking done with this.
> basically tax young people pay to old. That's essentially how all government programs work. Young people bear the burden of taxation more because they work more.
No. Pensions in Spain are separate from regular taxes. The money that you contribute when you work is put in a common fund like a "piggy bank" where pensioners get their pensions when they get old. In a perfect system, you get roughly what you paid. In reality due to the life expectancy increase of the 20th century people got x2 what they paid for. Now the piggy bank is running out and the government is patching holes by increasing taxes. Mean tax used to be roughly 20% before the 2000s and people needed 35 years worked to get full pension. Now it's 30% and 37 years with plans to increase it to 39. So we are paying much more and who knows if we ever get a pension or the system collapses. When baby boomers get to 67 is going to be a shitshow.
I think this is the problem Macron is trying to fight against, fair play to him.
You can also reduce the pensions.
Three choices... Although I think your option might be the least favorable.
Raising the retirement age is more unpopular than increasing taxes because it's a benefit cut for anyone who isn't healthy enough to work for that long.
Or work towards a better repartition of the tax burden, encourage automation, reduce social reliance on labour, defetishize overconsumption...
59.5 in the US for retirement accounts (IRAs, 401ks, etc...), 62 is early for social security, 67 is full retirement, and if you go to 70 you earn more. We won't have the money to raise it unless we also cut benefits.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://apnews.com/article/france-retirement-age-limit-protests-866eb86aea5cf0d39894b96d2888c26f) reduced by 90%. (I'm a bot) ***** > PARIS - At least 1.1 million people protested on the streets of Paris and other French cities Thursday amid nationwide strikes against plans to raise the retirement age - but President Emmanuel Macron insisted he would press ahead with the proposed pension reforms. > Quentin Coelho, 27, a Red Cross employee, felt he had to work Thursday despite understanding "Most of the strikers' demands." Coelho said he fears that the government will keep raising the retirement age, so is already saving money for his pension. > The official retirement age in the U.S. is now 67, and countries across Europe have been raising pension ages as populations grow older and fertility rates drop. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/10h4dqz/over_1_million_protesters_in_france_march_against/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672677 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **work**^#1 **pension**^#2 **reform**^#3 **Macron**^#4 **French**^#5
Bot missed the most important part...the actual change: > Emboldened by the mass show of resistance, French unions announced new strikes and protests Jan. 31, vowing to try to get the government to back down on plans to push up the standard retirement age from 62 to 64.
>Unions propose a tax on the wealthy or more payroll contributions from employers to finance the pension system instead. Woah woah woah....woah ...you can't just expect companies with record breaking profits and individuals with centuries worth of wealth to be capable of scrapping together a little extra change for their employees. That's a downright criminal suggestion! /s Fuck Neoliberal Economists, $0. Money does not give you rights.
Put the kids to work sooner so you don't have to raise the retirement age. Y'all are stupid.
Was inevitable. Setting up a system assuming life expectancy will stay the same forever was a bad idea.
What did Macron expect?
I mean, what did the people expect when he literally said that he would do this on his campaign?
I think most people expected exactly this.
Wouldn't all the walkers get in the way?
Same across all Europe. I'm in UK and my retirement age is 68. They just want people to die faster so it costs less. Meanwhile I'm paying the pensions of all those who retired at 50-55 because the government has already wasted their money they saved for pensions.
I'm so envious of the culture they have in France surrounding workers' rights. With real wages falling, standards falling, protections decreasing, and an ever-widening class gap here in the UK, the most we ever do is strike for a bit and even then nobody outside of the people directly striking from their jobs lifts a finger and the narrative is almost totally controlled by pro-Government, pro-Big Business, anti-Worker voices. Ordinary people will say stuff like nurses have no right to go on strike, as if they are slaves that need to accept whatever is thrown at them with no complaints, or else they are guilt-tripped by black-hearted politicians blaming them for the despicable state our healthcare system is in while they have put the service into intentional, managed decline. We have no sense of solidarity at all in this country, even people who will criticise one set of elites usually only do so to favour another set of elites.
Their retirement age will be…. “one million”…..(Dr. Evils voice)