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WASHINGTON (Nov. 23) -- Thanksgiving is often a time for family fights, but this year, as politicians and policy
wonks debate how to trim the federal debt, one idea may give all the generations at the table indigestion: raising
the age to retire.

Of all the ideas suggested by the chairmen of the bipartisan federal debt commission, raising the retirement age
for Social Security may rank among the least popular. Polls show a majority oppose working longer to help shore
up the program.

Yet the 75-year-old entitlement program is expected to go broke by 2037 after the last of the baby boomers have
retired. Since one in five federal dollars goes to Social Security, most plans to rein in spending call for some
combination of reduced benefits, higher taxes or delayed cashing in for retirees.

This wouldn't be the first time Congress has raised the age workers can retire with full benefits. In 2003, the
retirement age began creeping up from the original 65. Today, full retirement comes at 66 and will gradually rise
to 67 in 2022. Early eligibility for retirement, which brings with it reduced monthly benefits, has remained at 62.

Commission co-chairmen Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles want to gradually raise full retirement to 69 in about
2075. They would boost early retirement to 64.

According to the nonpartisan Urban Institute, "the full retirement age would have to increase to 73 for adults to
have the same expected years of remaining life in retirement today as in 1940" when Ida May Fuller became the
first Social Security beneficiary. Yet between 1950 and 2008, the average age to collect benefits fell from 68.5 to
63.6.

Only workers in Norway and Iceland work longer than Americans. This isn't France, where workers recently
rioted over a government plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, or Greece, where some workers can call
it quits with benefits at 50. Yet even in the land of the Protestant work ethic, few like the idea of putting off their
golden years.

A look at the arguments for and against raising the Social Security retirement age.

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 Three out of four young adults don't expect Social Security to be around when they retire.
Delaying full retirement benefits until 68 for those now 50, though, would reduce the program's 75-year funding
gap by 29 percent, according to estimates by Social Security actuaries, and increase the chances the children of
baby boomers will get some sort of government pension.

  . In 1940, the average American lived 62.9 years. Today, life expectancy is 77.9 years. The
Social Security Administration, which began when 65 really was "old age," estimates the average person today
will live 21 more years in retirement.

"We simply cannot sustain a system where a typical woman born today can expect to spend as much 25 percent
of their adult life, and a man as much as 14 percent, in retirement heavily subsidized by younger people," said
Stuart Butler, distinguished fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

  . The decline of manufacturing and the growth of the information economy has changed the
nature of work for many. The share of workers employed in physical labor fell from 57 percent in 1971 to 46
percent in 2006. At the same time, more Americans adapted better eating and exercise habits that have allowed
them to stay on the job longer.


 




. Those with back-breaking jobs or who are in ill health could be covered
under a modified Social Security disability program until they reach retirement age. "We can adapt the disability
system to enable workers who would be physically challenged to work until a later retirement to be provided with
benefits at an earlier age," Butler said.

 

  

 . Each extra year in the workforce offers more time t o increase Social
Security benefits and build up personal savings, said Andrew Biggs, a former Social Security Administration
official now at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. He said an average person who delays retirement
from 62 to 65 increases total retirement income by about $8,500. If everyone were required to work until at least
65, he added, poverty in old age would decline by almost 20 percent.


  
   According to a 2008 report by McKinsey & Co. cited by Heritage Foundation
retirement expert David John, increasing the median retirement age by two years by 2015 would add $13 trillion
to the economy over the next 30 years.

"If Americans work longer, it reduces the need for tax increases or other benefit reductions, such as to Social
Security" cost-of-living adjustments, Biggs said. "Moreover, a larger labor force would boost the economy and
federal tax revenues, making our other budget problems easier to solve."

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 Bumping the retirement age won't affect current retirees or most baby boomers, but
the Congressional Budget Office calculated that delaying retirement until 70 for workers born in 1978 would
reduce total lifetime benefits for today's millennial generation by about 15 percent.


  
 
    

 Working longer is not a realistic option for everyone.
"Raising the Social Security retirement age would be especially hard on lower-income and minority workers,
given large and growing disparities in life expectancy and poor health and/or job prospects," said a report from
the liberal Economic Policy Institute.

EPI noted that 61 percent of physically demanding jobs are held by workers in the bottom 40 percent of the wage
scale. These are also the workers more likely to reap fewer, if any, years of Social Security benefits and least
likely to have sizable pensions and 401(k) portfolios to supplement their Social Security checks. In fact, most
seniors rely on Social Security for the majority of their income and have little to draw on if they lose their job
before they come of age to retire.



  

 



 A Government Accountability Office report said raising the retirement
age would lead to a spike in disability payments that could cause more financial harm to Social Security since
they are typically higher than early retirement benefits. An influx of new applicants also could increase already
long wait times for approval.



  Older workers could face bias from employers who prefer younger employees with newer
skills and smaller salaries. The current recession has seen laid-off workers in their 50s and 60s spend more time
unemployed, with many worrying they may never work again or will have to take pay cuts that will diminish what
they eventually collect from Social Security.




  . Liberals say reducing benefits by delaying retirement isn't necessary to save the
system if taxes are increased on the wealthiest.

"The right answer to the program's financing problem isn't to make people in physically demanding jobs work until
they drop," wrote EPI's Ross Eisenbrey. "It's to make the rich pay a fair share of the taxes needed to fund full
benefits."