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retire sorry it's just not gonna happen
i wish it could really but nope anyway
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feel bad next week i'll be looking at
videos of puppies and assigning each one
of them terminal illnesses this adorable
little scamp is gonna get kidney disease
okay the reason i'm being so gloomy is
that retirement is genuinely under
threat after about a century of social
security retirement today is like a fish
out of water dying in the slowest most
painful to watch way retirement is less
secure than ever despite all of us
wanting to retire someday and honestly
that doesn't seem like we're asking for
a lot you might even say the bare
minimum after 40 odd years of near-daily
9-5 work it's only right that one day we
should all be nice and wrinkly steeping
in the balmy florida air just a stone's
toss away from an alligator and
sunglasses and a burning pile of those
math books that turn kids into commies
but some people have other plans for
example the people we elect to represent
us what do politicians think about
retirement well some politicians aren't
huge fans of people retiring and thereby
not putting every last drop of sweat
into the glorious chalice of economic
productivity so a lot of them have
turned to rolling back retirement
benefits and pushing them later and
later in life you might not know this
but in the u.s full social security
benefits are now only available at 67
years old two years later than what was
previously guaranteed that's not great
two years more of work at 65 is pretty
brutal but that applies mostly to people
who are old today for the three of you
that got lost and found this video sorry
for calling you old anyway the decision
to push retirement up to 67 isn't
actually all that recent it was made by
reagan back in the 80s and slowly got
phased in to apply to everyone by 2023
but with so much time since our good
friend ronald called the shots most
people watching this video will probably
be subject to entirely new policies and
according to current estimates that will
mean only getting your hands on social
security at some point in your early 70s
at that point most people watching this
video including me are getting our
retirement five or more years later than
previous generations despite supposedly
living through the greatest ever era in
human progress you might think this is a
uniquely american thing another classic
example of this country loving to make
the worst choice nobody asked for but
we're actually not alone this time
retirement benefits are getting pushed
back all over the world if you're like
me and you spend your time control
effing the word increase on this
specific wikipedia page you'll see that
that word shows up over 40 times
decrease only shows up once and it's not
even because there's one country out
there doing something special it's
because the page's editors decided to
add a hypothetical scenario all the way
at the bottom just for fun to take a
more specific example french president
macron has announced his plans to
increase retirement age by three years
if he gets a majority in the french
parliament for context the last time he
tried to do pension reforms back in 2019
this happened needless to say it didn't
work out too well for our buddy emmanuel
nonetheless there are plans in motion
all over the world to gradually increase
the age of retirement if you're a normal
person who's going to need social
security income to finance some or most
of your retirement that means you will
be working longer just for reference
social security is the largest source of
income for those over 65 and around 97
percent of the people who make it to
retirement depend on it in some capacity
so don't set your hopes on making it
without social security now back up just
a minute why would i say something so
awful as the people who make it to
retirement implying that maybe some of
you won't it's almost as if i had a
statistic i was waiting to use at the
perfect moment weird maybe i'll address
that in like 20 seconds totally
unrelated advocates of increasing the
retirement age always have the same
justification people are just living
longer we're just getting so old funding
for social security is in a tricky
position because more people are
spending more time in retirement and
since people are healthier now than they
were before it only makes sense that we
should increase the age of retirement at
least so the story goes but not only is
this argument pretty awful our
improvements in science and technology
shouldn't be used as a justification to
work more if anything we should be going
the other way shameless plug this
argument about increased life expectancy
is only technically true and it ignores
something pretty important something i
have a shiny graph for this is a graph
of the survival rate of men in the us
differentiated by income in other words
this graph takes two groups of men some
who make a lot others who make very
little and tracks how many are still
alive at every age the red line
represents people who are wealthier than
95 percent of the population the blue
line represents the lowest five percent
of income earners by age 61 20 of the
poorer group are already dead
that's 20 who never made it to
retirement in the first place at 76 just
a few years into retirement that number
jumps to around 50 percent while the
wealthy group is still sitting above an
80 survival rate for reference 76 is how
old dolly parton henry winkler and steve
martin are meaning that if dolly parton
had stayed in the 9-5 grind spending
time hanging out with steve and henry
might as well be up to a coin flip it's
incredibly insulting to raise the
retirement age knowing social security
is a necessity for poorer americans when
a very large chunk don't even make it to
retirement with our current policies
when you aggregate all this data the
differences in life expectancy between
the top 1 and bottom 1 is huge
15 whole years the poorer you are the
earlier you are likely to die and the
less likely you are to retire in the
first place politicians are right that
life expectancy has increased but not
for everyone not for the poor in some
cases the life expectancy of the poorest
americans has even gone down so not only
are the poor not living any longer these
policies mean that they will spend more
of their lives working as the age of
retirement keeps getting pushed up many
will never get to retire the result of
the drive to push retirement back is
that the poor suffer a double burden
shorter lives and more time spent
working while the rich enjoy double the
benefits longer lives and more time
spent in retirement since they don't
have to worry about being eligible for
social security these statistics are
awful and yet another brutal example of
how punishing inequality is in this
country but the researchers i got them
from actually point out something really
interesting about the data after 62
years old wealth stops being as big of a
factor when it comes to death it still
matters just to be clear but less
why
because 62 years old is the first time
many people start being eligible for
partial social security benefits once
you get social security your odds of
living get better and start looking a
little more like the odds that richer
americans have basically benefits start
evening out the scales if you want to
phrase that in more human terms getting
social security earlier literally saves
and extends the lives of poorer
americans giving them more time to enjoy
life and not working in old age it's not
nearly on par with their wealthier
counterparts but nonetheless helps
bridge that gap what this means and what
you need to hear when politicians start
pushing social security further back is
that they are okay with more poor people
dying earlier they're okay with more
people working longer and more people
never reaching retirement that's just
what happens when eligibility gets
pushed back even just a few years
politicians know that their wealthy
donors couldn't care less about the
official retirement age they have no
need for social security and can retire
whenever they want but at the end of the
day the later politicians draw the line
on retirement the luckier or the
wealthier you have to be to enjoy it you
can argue this is a necessary solution
to make social security financially
solvent but it's clearly the worst one
financing programs doesn't have to cause
the immiseration of senior citizens in
already precarious situations you might
think well that sucks but i'll be okay i
have a job and i started working pretty
young technically i should be fine
without social security for a couple
extra years and then i can probably
afford to retire before getting benefits
and oh if it were only that simple my
sweet summer child
retirement literally isn't what it used
to be back in the 20th century people
relied mostly on pensions for retirement
basically employers would calculate and
then finance retirement based on a
person's years spent working and things
like life expectancy pretty solid
service covered around 40 of the us
workforce and acted as a guarantee of
retirement once you were done working
pensions were stable you knew ahead of
time exactly what you would get regular
payouts for the rest of your life your
employer was the one held responsible
and you weren't forced to deal with all
the risk but in 1978 that all changed
after businesses looked to cut costs and
maximize shareholder profits they
lobbied and got the government to step
in out of this movement for leaner
business operations came the 401k a
small section of the u.s tax code that
turned out to have massive impacts as
you probably already know 401ks are
personal savings accounts built on
salary deductions with the main
advantage being able to deduct or defer
taxes primarily by avoiding capital
gains tax and essentially setting money
aside quote unquote tax-free sometimes
with your employer contributing a little
bit and misleadingly saying they're
matching it
this change from pensions to 401ks saves
businesses a ton of money and so pension
programs got completely gutted covering
just 13 percent of the workforce by
2008. as it always goes somebody had to
get the raw end of that deal and that
turned out to be the workers shocker
401ks shift the burden of risk and cost
out of the employer's hands and into
that of employees part of the reason
that's the case is that a lot of the
money people are setting aside in 401ks
isn't just sitting in a box it goes into
investments portfolios of stocks
although investments are relatively
stable over time the boom and bust cycle
of capitalism naturally make some
moments moments that last several years
an awful time to retire or to be retired
if you google things like how to protect
your 401k from a recession you'll find
pages and pages of financial advisors
telling retirees and people worried for
their future how recessions will
naturally put a strain on their
retirements telling them that they
should act conservatively during these
difficult economic periods which i can't
emphasize enough they have no control
over average run-of-the-mill employees
are burdened with risk deep into their
retirements even after they've stopped
working and i hate to think that after
this impassioned rant about 401ks you
might think we should just go back to
when times were good and more people had
pensions because no we absolutely
shouldn't pensions were already a
compromise we could have had an
expansive social security system that
covered most retirement costs and
actually takes care of seniors this
whole time but american companies needed
yet another way to twist your arm and
keep you working at an awful job after
all it's a lot harder to leave if on top
of your salary your retirement's on the
line you'd think this would all be bad
enough for retirees and future members
of the grey society but wouldn't you
believe it it actually gets worse for
starters saving for retirement today is
incredibly difficult in 2013 a full 52
percent of americans above 55 had
literally no retirement savings
whatsoever and how can you blame them
it's hard enough just to get by right
now much less plan ahead real wages have
been stagnating for decades benefits are
a rarity in an ever more gigafied
economy built on the back of the retail
sector and inflation is digging ever
deeper holes in domestic budgets but all
of that is relatively unsurprising and
right-wing pundits will just turn this
around on individuals to say that they
should just be more austere more ascetic
and more conservative with their
finances blaming money problems on
avocado toast or whatever the gen x
equivalent is i don't know plain toast
the problem with that narrative is that
even when americans are able to set
money aside even when they follow all
the punishing rules conservatives hold
up about living within your means
despite working full-time jobs even then
saving money for retirement happens on
predatory terms for that we have to
thank a relatively recent change back in
2020 the trump labor department snuck in
a policy concerning 401k investments
401ks could now be invested anywhere
businesses want employers could channel
retirement savings for their employees
through any sort of investment firm
which as you might expect meant towards
firms with riskier assets and higher
upfront fees this was the product of
some pretty gross lobbying by blackstone
a private equity firm which got its
wishes granted after dumping a cool 3
million dollars in a trump supportive
super pac thanks to this handy green
wheel grease the trump admin waved
through this change to 401ks under the
guise of expanding the freedom of
american workers to invest their
retirement savings anywhere they want
obviously the real freedom this policy
change guaranteed was the freedom to get
fleeced these services do not deliver
better returns than low fee stock index
funds but take big cuts at the top and
use that money to advertise their very
normal results as if they were the
product of investing super geniuses
between 2006 and 2015 one oxford
researcher estimates that these private
equity firms made an eye-watering 230
billion dollars calling it the largest
transfer of wealth in the history of
modern finance from a few hundred
million pension scheme members to a few
thousand people working in private
equity that process only got worse
thanks to the freedom to use retirement
funds on quote riskier and quote more
exclusive services under the new trump
policy and as a side note back when he
was running for office biden called this
quote yet another example of president
trump putting the interest of wall
street ahead of american workers and
families once he got into office his
labor department did the same thing
funny how that works with all these
forces conspiring against retirees it's
no surprise that many people of
retirement age live out their final
years in retail jobs or rvs traveling
across the country to be seasonal
laborers in short-term gigs that offer
them just enough to get by no benefits
and long strenuous work hours amazon is
actually one of the biggest companies to
have capitalized on this workforce
through programs like camperforce
they're like marvel characters except
with the power of super exploitation
this labor force made up mostly of
elderly people is a boon for amazon
because since they're desperate for
income and never end up sticking around
for too long they never get the chance
to unionize people who should otherwise
be retired make for perfect plug and
play labor now it's time for the
conclusion i've said a lot of stuff but
admittedly the title and intro to this
video are a little dramatic many of you
watching should hopefully retire at
least if we go by what's happening to
people entering retirement today the
point of this video is not to
definitively prove that you specifically
won't be able to retire one day but to
alert you to some very worrying trends
that if they're not stopped and actively
reversed will make retirement an
unattainable luxury that could
legitimately slip out of your hands
workers won the right to stop working in
old age a century ago through policies
like medicare and social security union
contracts and eventually laws were the
fruit of militant labor struggles over
decades like the weekend and vacations
any time we get off work is a prize
clawed out of capital's hands by decades
of working people fighting back in the
streets and on the job long before any
of us were ever born it is our
responsibility to preserve these rights
where they're under threat and expand
them as much as possible wherever they
exist
this tendency for things to get worse
for the average person and for wealth to
continue to accumulate in fewer and
fewer hands is one of the core features
of capitalism that's what i try to teach
my viewers here at second thought but
for most people it's easier to imagine
the end of the world than the end of
capitalism if you'd like to understand
why that is i highly recommend you check
out mark fisher's capitalist realism on
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[Music]
you