Trends for White Collar vs Blue Collar Senior Citizens

[tailfins]

In the lexicon of popular hate-figures, work-shirking welfare queens breeding at the taxpayer’s expense may be replaced by deadbeat grandads collecting taxpayer handouts while their hard-working contemporaries strive on.

Politicians need to convince less-skilled older voters that it is in their interests to go on working. Doing so will not be easy. But the alternative—economic stagnation and even greater inequality—is worse.

Me personally, I will work until I get permanently sick or locked out of the professional job market due to age. Since even convicted felons have figured out how to work in IT via project board where they work remotely and get paid by the project, surely even an 80 year old has a leg up over a convicted felon.

http://discover.economist.com/?a=21601253

[Drummond]

.. H'mm. I can only speak for myself, of course. Forgive me for seeing this somewhat simplistically.

I'm eligible for retirement. I haven't retired yet, but in the coming months I'll do so.

When I do ... I'll be living on a pension I've paid into over a number of decades. Run by my employer .. its payouts the product of investments.

THAT SAID .... one day, I'll also qualify for a State pension.

The point that taxpayers pay into that system is, of course, a valid one. But so is the point that I, AS A TAXPAYER, have also paid into that 'pot', myself.

One could argue: if I take nothing of a State pension, do I allow others to sponge off of MY payments, made over all those years ?

If people, en masse, decided to boycott State pension payments ... would the plundering of the 'pot' be principally made by those freeloaders who've contributed minimally to it ?

[gabosaurus]

My mom got a good buyout offer and retired. She continues to work part time as a substitute.
My dad might never retire. He enjoys what he does too much.