Early Retirement Blog

Update Dec. 7, 2009 : Great News! Senate Democrats are proposing the very same idea I proposed three days ago in this article, expand Medicare coverage to Americans 55 thru 65 years of age.   Call your congressperson and urge them to support this proposal.   Passage could make early retirement affordable for millions of Americans. Original article below:

President Obama invited 130 business and labor leaders to the White House for a one day job summit, to try and come up with ideas on how to get Americans back to work and reduce high unemployment.   I was not invited.   If I had been invited to the Obama job summit, I would have told the president that he could quickly and easily lower unemployment by offering Americans an early retirement package.

My Obama Job Summit idea for creating jobs and reducing unemployment, is to lower the age of eligibility for Medicare to 55, encouraging millions of Americans to retire early.

By lowering the age of eligibility of Medicare, President Obama could significantly lower the number of unemployed and the unemployment rate, create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, increase corporate profitability and reduce layoffs, expand health care coverage to more Americans, and greatly reduce our nation’s carbon output.

Many of the millions of Americans age 55-65, who have been laid-off and will most probably not ever find an equal paying job again, will take the Obama early retirement package and settle in to retirement.  Millions of other American workers age 55-65 who have either delayed their retirements, or are too afraid to retire due to their concern over health care, will choose to take the early retirement package.

The unemployment rate will dramatically drop as millions of Americans leave the unemployment rolls, and hundreds of thousands of new jobs will be created, to replace the millions who have retired.   Corporations who are considering laying off workers, will kill their layoff plans, as they watch their employees retire early.   Payroll expenses will decline, corporations will become more profitable, and will be forced to hire again to replace their retiring workforce.   And, unemployment will further decline.

Lowering the age of eligibility for Medicare to 55 expands health care coverage to millions of Americans. And, by reducing the age of eligibility for Medicare, leading to a reduction in the size of the workforce, the early retirement plan reduces the nations carbon output.   Millions of Americans will stop commuting.  As a bonus, the U.S. Trade Deficit will shrink, as billions of barrels of oil will no longer have to be imported.

Under the Early Retirement Recovery Act, Americans age 55-65 who choose not to work will become eligible to receive full Medicare benefits.   If they choose to go back to work after they retire – they lose their benefits.  The Early Retirement Recovery Act could easily be paid for by allowing the Bush tax cuts for the rich to expire.

Early retirement is a positive solution to the very negative problem of chronic high unemployment.   Paying for Health care in retirement is perhaps the biggest concern of Americans as they approach retirement. Fear of being able to afford health care in retirement prevents millions of Americans from retiring.   Eliminating this fear and expense by lowering the Medicare age, would encourage millions of Americans to retire early, and automatically and happily reduce unemployment in America.

You are reading the Early Retirement Blog, visit the Early Retirement Website, to learn how you can retire early by saving the planet, and try our free retirement calculators.