South By North Strategies, Ltd.

A recent fact sheet prepared by the Economic Policy Institute presents 10 arguments against raising the retirement age. Two of the arguments address the frequently unstated class assumptions present in calls for raising the retirement age:

6. Raising the retirement age affects all workers, even those who have seen little or no increase in life expectancy.Men in the top half of the earnings distribution have increased their life expectancy at age 65 by five years since 1982.Lower-income men have seen a gain of only 1.1 years, and lower income women have seen life expectancy decline
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7. Working longer is not a choice for millions of Americans, many of whom hold physically demanding jobs. People in physically demanding jobs tend to have more physical ailments and also tend to be poorer than average. Sixty-one percent of physically demanding jobs are held by workers in the bottom 40% of the wage scale.