(And, by the way, I oppose raising the retirement age, in case you thought that “intelligent discussion” had to be a code term for introducing a right-wing talking point. Liberals are allowed to have intelligent discussions.)
Anyway, on the face of it, the right-wing point of view appears plausible. People today live longer than they did in the 1930s when Social Security was implemented. If I recall correctly, the claim is made that back then the expected time when SS benefits would be paid was about seven years, from age 65 until age 72. (Somebody correct me if you have reliable information that is different.) Today people live much longer, so it seems to just make sense to raise the retirement age to keep it more or less in step with the expected age of death, which today is just over 77 years. So raising the full retirement age to 70 would restore the seven-year span during which benefits would be paid, on average.
But right away we have a problem. There is a big difference between life expectancy at birth and life expectancy for people who have already attained an advanced age. After all, life expectancy at birth includes the probability of dying in infancy or childhood, which used to be much more common than it is today. Therefore the life expectancy at birth for a person born in the 1930s was actually only about 62 years. Long ago, in primitive societies, it was even lower. Maybe 30 or 35 years. But that does not mean that most of them were dropping dead at 35; it means that those who lived a normal life until 70 or more were largely balanced out by those who never made it to their second birthday.
Anyway, if my recollection that a Security recipient in the 1930s could expect to receive benefits for seven years is correct, that would mean that the average life expectancy of a person then who was already 65 years old was 72 years. For direct comparison, an American who is alive at 65 today can expect to live until 82 (if male) or 84 (if female). So that works out to 17 to 19 years of receiving benefits, on average. This means that to get that span back to seven years, we would have to raise the age of retirement to 75.
But now we get to my real question for discussion: are people who are 70 or 75 today in better condition than people of that age in the 1930s? My guess is no. (Again, I welcome information to the contrary.) In fact, it seems that older people today are more likely to be obese and diabetic, with various heart conditions, than people back then. People are not living longer today because they are stronger and more capable than people of similar age were in the 30s, they simply have access to better health care and smoke fewer cigarettes. (In the 30s practically all men smoked, whereas today less than 20% do. And while fewer women smoked in the 30s, almost none of them had jobs that were covered by Social Security.) So that raises the possibility that raising the retirement age would in many (most?) cases simply require infirm people (who nonetheless have access to life-extending healthcare) to keep on working longer than they are really able to. We already see a lot of people taking disability retirement before they reach 65; how much would that increase if early disability retirement was anything before age 70?
I am more interested in gaining information than I am in winning an argument. Or perhaps I should say that I am putting forth a hypothesis, and would like to see some information to support (or not) my hypothesis, from people who know more about this topic than I do. Although my own Social Security is a done deal and fairly safe for my remaining expected lifespan, I strongly oppose taking away future benefits for those who are younger than I am. But what do the facts say? Can it be plausibly argued that being 70 today is comparable to being 65 in 1935? Why or why not?
Let the intelligent discussion begin!