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Working Ourselves to Death: Why Increasing the Retirement Age Is Bad

Christopher R Martin Working-Class Perspectives
Raising the retirement age isn’t just about having the “best years of retirement be stolen,” as French protesters have warned. It’s about fairness and not putting years more of the nation’s labor burden on the working class. Next time the government moves to raise the retirement age, we should follow the French example to protest and proclaim, “It’s a No.”

An Uptick in Elder Poverty: A Blip, or a Sign of Things To Come?

Lydia DePillis New York Times
In the 1960s, more than a third of seniors lived in poverty. Federal programs like Medicare to help the elderly, the situation improved significantly. But last year, the poverty rate for those 65 or older increased, even as it sank for everyone else.

Pension Bills Have Always Been Bipartisan. Not Anymore.

Joshua Gotbaum Brookings
Pension legislation historically has been bipartisan—and it very well might be again in the future. After more than a decade of failed efforts, the retirement security of 1.5 million Americans and their families, finally, took priority.

labor

Government-Sponsored Retirement Plans for Private-Sector Workers Fall Short

By GREGORY N. HEIRES www.thenewcrossroads.com
The government-promoted plans let employers completely off the hook and put the entire burden of retirement savings and investment management on workers. They put another nail in the coffin of traditional plans in which employers share the expense.

labor

‘I Hope I Can Quit Working in a Few Years’: A Preview of the U.S. Without Pensions

Peter Whoriskey Washington Post
The way major U.S. companies provide for retiring workers has been shifting for about three decades, with more dropping traditional pensions every year. The first full generation of workers to retire since this turn offers a sobering preview of a labor force more and more dependent on their own savings for retirement.

labor

Funding Agreement Protects Orphan Miner Health Care, But Doesn't Resolve Pension Issues

Tracie Mauriello Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Democrats and coal-country Republicans say miners are uniquely deserving because of an agreement in 1946, when the government seized mines and ended a strike by agreeing to provide health and pension benefits. Legislative leaders have agreed to the provisions as part of a $1 trillion government funding bill, and rank-and-file members are expected to approve it later this week.

labor

Pension Bonds: State and Local Official Should Proceed with Caution

Aaron Kuriloff WSJ Money Beat
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback wants to make a decades-long bet that pension-fund returns will exceed current interest rates for taxable municipal bonds. “The use of pension bonds impugns an issuer more than a downgrade, because it shows they’re willing to saddle future generations with risk in order to make current budget discussions easier,” says Matt Fabian, a partner at Concord, MA-based research firm Municipal Market Analytics.

Meet The Hedge Fund Wiz Kid Who’s Shrinking America’s Pensions

Alan Pyke ThinkProgress
Arnold’s spokespeople bristle at the suggestion that the billionaire is out to cut pensions, insisting that he only wants a realistic accounting of the under-funding problem. But the similarities between what Raimondo did in Rhode Island and what the Arnold Foundation advocates nationwide are striking.
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