Why 65 should be 70: because 2005 is not 1935

It gladdens my heart to see so many articles about Social Security lately. I’m starting to believe, despite the doubts expressed in the WashPost today, that Americans understand the problem at hand and are genuinely searching for a 21st century solution. In that spirit, William Saletan writes in Slate that because Republicans won’t raise payroll taxes and Democrats won’t cut benefits, Americans should consider raising the retirement age and decouple it from the Depression-era reasoning that set it at 65:

Opponents of a higher retirement age say life expectancy is the wrong number to look at. According to AARP, "The fact that most people are living longer does not necessarily mean they can work longer; those in physically demanding jobs would be hit hard by a higher retirement age." Fair enough. So let's look at the number of physically demanding jobs. And let's look at how many people, given those demands, could work longer.

In its 1935 report, Roosevelt's committee attached a table of occupations held by employed Americans aged 55 or older. More than 80 percent worked in agriculture, manufacturing, trade, or domestic and personal service. Fewer than 10 percent worked in professional service or clerical occupations. Today's economy looks nothing like that. In 1999, Eugene Steuerle and Richard Johnson of the Urban Institute reported that the percentage of Americans working in physically demanding jobs—defined as jobs "requiring frequent lifting or carrying of objects weighing more than 25 pounds"—had fallen from more than 20 percent in 1950 to less than 8 percent in 1996. Two years ago, Johnson and Steuerle added that the percentage of 55- to 59-year-old men who said health problems interfered with their jobs had declined from more than 27 percent in 1971 to less than 20 percent in 2002.

Saletan estimates the “new 65” retirement age: “In short, if you were designing a system in 1999 for people who could expect as many active years as a 65-year-old person could expect in 1935, you'd set the retirement age at 70. And by 2015, you'd raise it to 73.” Social Security’s original intent in 1935 was to prevent old-age poverty for Americans devastated by the Depression and unable to support themselves in an economy based on farming and dock-working. Now we need to ask healthy seniors to answer phones or cut keys at Home Depot. In sum, this is not 1935 anymore and we can't continue to burden young workers while holding this unrealistic ideal that Social Security is an inviolate program, untethered to modern times.