July 02, 2010
The huge baby boom cohort is just approaching retirement. Workers in their 50s and 60s have just seen much of the wealth that they were able to accumulate destroyed with the collapse of the housing bubble and the resulting plunge in the stock market. As a result of this loss of wealth the overwhelming majority of baby boomers will be relying on Social Security for the overwhelming majority of their retirement income.
Thankfully the Washington Post has the perfect remedy. It proposes to immediately start to raise the normal retirement age to 67 (from 66) for those just about to retire and to continue raising it until it hits 70 for workers born in 1971. This increase in retirement age would be equivalent to roughly a 5 percent cut in benefits for those just now reaching retirement age and a 15 percent cut in benefits for those retiring in 25 years.
Since Social Security will be the overwhelming source of income for most near retirees a cut in benefits is the same as a tax increase of the same amount. So, the Washington Post is effectively proposing to help homeowners near the age of retirement with the equivalent of an income tax increase of 5-15 percentage points.
It is remarkably that the editorial does not include one word about the loss of wealth from the collapse of the housing bubble. The Washington Post’s news and editorial departments were completely unable to recognize the $8 trillion housing bubble prior to its collapse (columnist Steven Pearlstein is a partial exception). Apparently, they still don’t know anything about the bubble even after its collapse led to the largest economic downturn in 70 years.
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