Greider, William,

Riding into the Sunset. William Greider. - Nation, 2005. - SIRS Enduring Issues 2006. Article 57, Family, 1522-3213; .

Articles Contained in SIRS Enduring Issues 2006. Originally Published: Riding into the Sunset, June 27, 2005; pp. 13+.

"In 1900 Americans on average lived for only 49 years and most working people died still on the job. For those who lived long enough, the average 'retirement' age was 85. By 1935, when Social Security was enacted, life expectancy had risen to 61 years. Now it is 77 years--nearly a generation more--and still rising....This inheritance from the last century--the great gift of longer life--surely represents one of the country's most meaningful accomplishments. Yet the achievement has been transformed into a monumental problem by contemporary politics and narrow-minded accounting....Painful solutions must be taken to avoid financial ruin. Or so we are told. A much happier conviction is expressed by Robert Fogel, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at the University of Chicago and a septuagenarian himself." (NATION) The author explores Fogel's views on the expanding longevity of the nation, which he sees not as "a financial burden but an enormous and underdeveloped asset."

1522-3213;


Individual retirement accounts
Pensions
Retirees
Self-realization
Social security

AC1.S5

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