It's easy for those of us who work mostly at a desk to envision working two more years, but we're also the ones who won't need SS quite as desperately, because we (one hopes) have been saving for retirement. The retirees who depend most on SS tend to be workers who spent their careers in lower-paying, more physically taxing jobs. Two more years of work for them often means higher health care costs, which ends up being more expensive than two years of SS payments.
Raising retirement ages is bad for the nation all around. The more elderly that work, the fewer jobs for the young. And the young have a lot more energy with which to cause trouble when they have no jobs.
In addition, a lot of people over 50 who are now unemployed will never work again, due to companies' reluctance to hire older workers. They will also be a huge drain on our economy, through no fault of their own. And the longer before they can collect SS and go on Medicare, the more expensive they will be later, due to poor living conditions and health problems they couldn't address sooner.
Our nation is facing a much more serious issue in long-term unemployment than it is in SS.
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Gentlemen! We're burning daylight! Riders up! -Bill Murray
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