Raising the Eligibility Age for Government Retirement Benefits Doesn’t Mean You Have to Wait to Retire
When you retire is up to you, not the government
France is in an uproar because President Emmanuel Macron has raised the country’s official retirement age from 62 to 64.
Every time someone suggests raising the eligibility age for Social Security in the U.S., people go ballistic.
Why?
If you want to retire, you can do it at any age. You don’t need the government’s permission.
What you need is the financial wherewithal to provide for yourself.
The primary argument for raising the Social Security eligibility age is to preserve the Social Security Trust Fund. People are living and collecting benefits longer, putting a strain on the system that needs to be fixed. There are other issues to consider when formulating a plan to preserve Social Security, but that’s not the point I want to make here.
My point is:
Raising the eligibility age for government retirement benefits does not mean the retirement age is raised.