At least one inside-the-Beltway type is willing to say it out loud:
HUIZENGA: So, we saw Erskine Bowles and we saw Alan Simpson with, the debt commission come out with some discussion points about raising the retirement age and looking at means testing, some other things. And whether we go that direction or not specifically on means testing, certainly that conversation about raising the retirement age is something we can have. I had somebody at a town hall meeting sorta go after me about that. And I stopped the guy and I said, look, I’m 42. I’ll be 106 when these recommendations, if we adopted them right now, would actually come into place. I’m gonna be okay. We’re going to have to reset the paradigm for people here in America as to what the purpose of social security really is.
Well bully for you, Rep. Bill Huzeinga. But, like I said, at least you're honest in saying it's no skin off your back, you're gonna be okay. Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles and Sen. Mark Warner and David Brooks and all the other white guys who get to sit on their asses all day with staff doing all the heavy lifting haven't been nearly as honest as you.
It's just fantastic that you're gonna be ok in your geezerhood. It's the rest of us you were elected to think about, to work for. A good majority of the rest of us, low and moderate income earners, aren't actually seeing that happy, carefree, long old age. Here's the Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR) [pdf]: “there has been a sharp rise in inequality in life expectancy by income over the last three decades that mirrors the growth in inequality in income.”
That dark blue line that stays flat? That's life expectancy for the bottom half of wage earners. Among them, "nearly half of workers over the age of 58 work at jobs that are either physically demanding or involve difficult work conditions" (CEPR). They're not gonna be okay if they die still on the job, unable to retire because they have to keep on waiting for their Social Security.