Early Retirement Blog

Lower the retirement age, from the current 62  years old, down to 58 years.  This simple act, will create jobs, and lower unemployment.  And will have the effect of increasing wages, as workers move up to higher paying jobs, replacing older skilled workers.  As wages go up, more money is placed into the Social Security Trust Fund, to help offset the cost of an earlier retirement age.

 

Drop the Medicare eligibility age from 65 down to 58.  The health-care industry does not want to insure our elderly.  To reduce health care costs, de-list hospital chains from the stock exchanges, and force them to accept non-profit status.  Cap CEO pay to 4 times the median doctor employed by the corporation.  Innovation does not occur in hospitals, allow pharmaceutical companies, to continue to be listed on the stock exchange.  However, ban pharmaceutical advertising, and the practice of bribing doctors.

 

In addition, to help pay for these programs and further increase wages, the nation needs to legalize our 12 million undocumented workers.  The taxes collected from these workers and their families, will help fund Social Security and Medicare, and federal and state governments.  Employers will be forced to pay all employees equally, regardless of status, thereby increasing employment opportunities for native born Americans.  And helping to increase their wages, as employers will no longer be able to under cut U.S. born citizens, by hiring non-native workers.  And our nation can once again, honor the words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, that welcomed immigrants to help build our great nation. To illustrate the point, here is a story about a Kosher meat packing plant that filed for bankruptcy, after 300 of their employees were arrested by immigration.  It should be the owners who knowingly hired illegal workers, not the employees, who should be in jail.

 

What the country needs is wage inflation to spur consumption and rebuild consumer confidence in our economy.  The American middle class, the engine of our economy, has not seen an inflation adjusted wage increase since 1973.  Nearly two generations of Americans, have seen the cost of living, rise faster than their wages. The credit bubble masked this reality, easy credit is gone, the bubble has burst.

 

To help our economy adjust to higher wages, the Federal Reserve should include food and energy in core inflation, and stop measuring prices against wages.  The Federal Reserve, should not be in the business of restricting wages, and punishing the retired.

 

Corporations must understand, that creating profits from lower wage workers, has resulted in consumers who can not afford their products. Chasing around the world to lower cost labor markets, and using illegal cheap labor at home, is a downward spiral towards self annihilation.

 

Increasing wages will generate more real dollars for families, generate more revenue for federal, state and local governments, will rebuild consumer confidence, negate the need for Keynsian projects or tax cuts, thereby helping to balance the budget.

 

More importantly, increasing jobs and wages, by lowering the retirement and Medicare ages, will restore the American Dream.  This generation, will feel the positive effects of higher wages, and come to believe that their children will have a better life.  Sunshine in America.

Update:  Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich has copied the idea in this article, and is set to introduce legislation which would temporarily lower the retirement age to 60, to help lower unemployment.  Read more here Kucinich Early Retirement Plan.

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