“Because of longevity, raising the age limit is long overdue,” says Robert Klein, founder of Retirement Income Center in Newport Beach, Calif. “People are now retired for many more years than they used to be.”

The Business Roundtable, a group of CEOs of leading businesses in the United States, is pushing for raising the retirement age, as well as other measures that would boost funding for Social Security but cut benefits for recipients.

The changes are needed “to preserve the safety net for future generations of retirees,” the Business Roundtable says in its proposal for changes to Social Security. The current Social Security structure “is not designed to cope with America’s new demographic realities.”

However, other groups point out that the CEOs pushing for raising the retirement age and other changes that would cut benefits do not have to rely on Social Security for their retirement.

“The loudest calls for cutting grandma’s benefits are coming from CEOs who will never have to worry about their own retirement security,” says Sarah Anderson, global economy director of the Institute for Policy Studies.

The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare also opposes raising the retirement age. “For those of us sitting behind a desk it might be OK, but people working in retail or at manual labor have physical challenges. Other people are forced out of work through age discrimination or because of family demands,” says committee spokeswoman Pamela Causey. “This makes raising the retirement age unrealistic.”

“Social Security money helps the entire community because beneficiaries spend it locally,” adds Causey. “Young people are not paying much attention but raising the age impacts them.”

An alternative to raising the retirement age could be to remove or raise the income limit on which Social Security taxes are imposed, which would bring more money into the fund and would make higher income individuals pay more, she says. Currently, the first $113,700 in income is subject to Social Security tax.
 

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