Katie Couric's Notebook: Retirement Age

By: Katie Couric
Topics: Katie Couric's Notebook

Ernest Hemingway once said that retirement is the ugliest word in the language.

Now, it seems, several states might agree. According to the Wall Street Journal, at least 10 state legislatures voted this year to require new government employees to work more years before retiring with benefits. Lawmakers hope that will reduce long-term pension costs and help balance budgets.

In Illinois, for instance, the retirement age for new hires was upped from 60 to 67. In Utah, state employees must now log 35 years rather than 30.

In some ways, it makes sense. Budgets aside, older workers often have a lot to offer -- and gain -- in the workplace. In fact a recent study found that employment later in life can even help stave off dementia.

Of course, in an ideal world, working longer would be a choice, not a necessity. But this isn't an ideal world -- or economy.

Nowadays, too many careers are ending with a pink slip... instead of a gold watch.

That's a page from my notebook.

I'm Katie Couric, CBS News.

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by DrRobertO September 13, 2010 10:46 AM EDT: As is pointed out in Book 8 of the popular free ebook series (http://andgulliverreturns.info) people must pay for their own retirements. A 65 year old Social Security recipient has paid in about enough money to support him for 3 years. But he will live about another 15--so somebody else has to pay, or borrow to pay, him. When Social Security was enacted the average person died before he retired--but today we live much longer.; Reply to this comment


by elizabethm37 September 13, 2010 3:02 AM EDT: Allowing retirement to be longer, as you said can have its pros and cons in today's economy. Would you say that soon enough the entire country would be following such law?; Reply to this comment