Raising the Retirement Age?

["Steven H. Johnson" <info@sscommonsense.org>]

I think raising the retirement age is basically a cop-out.

The real challenge is that of accumulating an adequate pool of 
capital for Social Security so that current benefit levels can
be protected.  If we don't do this, if we don't save, then a 
wide range of benefit cuts will be unavoidable, including measures
to raise the retirement age.

There is a tough equity issue involved in raising the retirement age.
People who spend their lives in low income jobs don't live as
long as people who spend their lives in higher income jobs.
Raise the retirement age for everybody, and those who spend their
lives working in low income jobs will be much more hard hit 
by the change.
In fact, the life expectancy differential pretty much wipes out
the progressivity of Social Security, according to those who
have looked closely at the issue.
Yes, people with low incomes get proportionally higher benefits
when they retire. 
But they don't lives as long, so the total benefits they collect
aren't necessarily any higher than the total lifetime benefits 
collected by higher income workers.

Is there any way to adjust the retirement policy to account for
this?
Should people with higher average annual incomes be told they
can't retire as early as people with lower average annual incomes?
I suppose that's hypothetically possible, but I can't imagine
any politician relishing the idea of trying to sell that idea
to his or her constituents.

Instead of doing this, let's accumulate the capital that Social
Security needs, so that retirement ages won't have to change.

-Steve Johnson