BOWLING GREEN, OH – MAY 17: Clayton Fackler, 72, works at the check out at the new 2,000 square foot Wal-Mart Supercenter store May 17, 2006 in Bowling Green, Ohio. The new store, one of three new supercenters opening today in Ohio, employs 340 people with 60 percent of those working full-time. (Photo by J.D. Pooley/Getty Images)
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U.S. retirees plan to work until they die. Which is a very happy story about the evolution of retirement. The previous truths are seemingly lost on policy writer John Mac Ghlionn.
Writing recently at The Hill, Mac Ghlionn asserted with evident misery that “There are already a record 11.6 million Americans aged 65 and older still punching the clock.” He should be cheering what has him so downcast.
While Americans used to work until 65 fully aware that they wouldn’t live much past “retirement age,” now they’re “still punching the clock.” Those who are 65 and up know why they are.
Mac Ghlionn paints a picture of desperation whereby the 65+ cohort must work to pay the bills, but the happier reality is that this is not your grandfather’s 65. Better yet, people in the 65+ range increasingly look and feel young. They’re working because they want to, not because they must.
Evidence supporting the claim that work for the “elderly” is increasingly a choice is hiding in plain sight. It can first be found in nonchalance from retirees and would-be retirees about the alleged Social Security benefit cuts on the horizon. About the bruited cuts, it’s useful to first point out that they’re not happening. The same Congress that routinely spent any overages in Social Security tax collections will soon enough dip into general revenues to pay full Social Security benefits.
Whatever happens, rumors of looming cuts elicit nothing resembling alarm in the 65+ crowd. Which is telling, and the tell is that fewer and fewer American retirees are wholly reliant on Social Security as is.
Which is really a statement of the obvious, though not one that Mac Ghlionn is willing to acknowledge. While he promotes the fiction of retirement desperation, the empirical reality is that America’s senior citizens are richer than ever. Only for the story to get better.
Oddly enough, it’s the pessimist in Mac Ghlionn telling the uplifting story. Not only are Americans in the 65+ category richer than ever, they’re also increasingly choosing work over full-time leisure. Meaning they’re well-to-do, plus they have income that will help compound their retirement wealth.
Funny about all this is that when Mac Ghlionn isn’t painting a false picture of retirement, he’s promoting the fiction that artificial intelligence (AI) is poised to bring about mass unemployment. Yes, his AI unemployment story contradicts his record employment story among 65+. But that’s a digresssion.
Naturally AI won’t foster mass unemployment, and the “elderly” remind us why.
It’s not just that 65 is no longer 65, it’s that as mechanized hands and minds enter the workforce they won’t put older people out of work as much as they’ll render them much more valuable precisely because they’ll spare them from the least agreeable, most taxing aspects of work. Which is a reminder that as the years pass, the 11.6 million number cited by Mac Ghlionn will expand. It will be beautiful, and not just for seniors who will have a purpose well beyond 65.
What we call an “economy” is never harmed by the entrance of people or machines, rather it’s always lifted by an expanded, productivity boosting division of labor. In other words, the economy will get better than ever precisely because seniors will be happily working in more specialized fashion longer than ever.