If the retirement age is increased, it won't help solve the retirement problem — in fact, what it will do is put low-wage earners who retire early at higher risk of poverty.
That's according to an opinion piece on Marketwatch by Alicia H. Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
Although Munnell says that "[p]roposals to increase Social Security's retirement age are beginning to resurface" and being presented as a practical outcome of an increased life span—after all, if people are living longer, why shouldn't they work longer?—the plan is flawed in that "the retirement age has little to do with how long people work, and a lot to do with how much money they get. Increasing the retirement age is a benefit cut."
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