A protestor holds a sign reading “64 years is a no” during a May Day (Labor Day) demonstration in Lille, France, on May 1, 2023, more than a month after the government pushed an unpopular pensions reform act through parliament.
Sameer Al-doumy | Afp | Getty Images
French citizens have taken to the streets to protest a pension retirement age increase to 64 from 62.
In the U.S., as discussions heat up about the need for Social Security reforms, some have also suggested raising the retirement age.
Such an adjustment would be unlikely to include current and near retirees. Experts say that may largely leave younger generations to pick up the tab on any coming changes to the program.
“All this stuff is coming back to haunt young people,” said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor and Social Security expert.
“This is a time for young people — millennials — to take to the street and have a rally down in Washington, because this is generational expropriation,” Kotlikoff said.
Social Security to face key deadline in next decade
Social Security will face a critical inflection point in the next decade.
The latest projections from the Social Security board of trustees find the program’s combined fund will be depleted in 2034 — one year earlier than was projected in 2022. At that point, just 80% of benefits will be payable.
The program has been structured so that workers’ contributions through payroll taxes largely fund the benefit income for current beneficiaries. But with 10,000 baby boomers turning 65 every day — which is expected to go up to 12,000 per day in 2024 — the program is facing a shortage in funding.
The country has been here before. In 1983, changes were enacted to extend the program’s solvency including taxes on benefits and gradually increasing the retirement age.
Today, a higher Social Security retirement age is still getting phased in, with people born in 1960 or later having to wait until age 67 to receive their full “retirement age”…
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