Economists on the Left Discover … Well … Economics
Basically, it’s a mess,” says [Steven A.] Sass of the world of retirement today. He says employers liked mandatory retirement because it allowed for an orderly and predictable departure from the payroll. But that certainty is gone at a time that, more than ever, older workers need to find new jobs. In the 1980s, Sass says, about 75 percent of 50-year old workers would be at the same company 10 years later. Today, only half of 60 year-olds are working at the same place that employed them at age 50. In Working Longer, he and [Alicia] Munnell float what he calls the “somewhat scandalous” suggestion that the prohibition on mandatory retirement be repealed—allowing companies to impose it, he suggests, at the “politically feasible” age of 70. “Unless employers have an assurance they have a way to get rid of older employees, they won’t hire older workers,” he says.
This is from Yglesias.
Sometimes the densest of people can wake up to reality.
Remember the parable of the prodical son.
I’m sure the civil rights people will have something to say about this.
When it comes to federal and state workers, pundits worry about them retiring too early and taxpayers having to foot the bill for workers’ golden years – that may extend longer than the worker was employed. Economists now worry that private sector workers will hang on in an attempt to die on the job? Very strangeindeed. It probably is true that if the risk of firing an older worker is high, firms will steer clear of them.
Use em up, Throw em out. No safety net allowed…