Wogster

As someone who barely qualifies to be here (end of the boomer age, I turn 50 on Saturday), the problem with all of this, is that when 65 was picked as a retirement age, back in the 1960's the number of people expected to live more then year or two beyond that, was minimal, so it was a good age to pick. Now of course with improvements in medical science in the last 50 years, has lead to more and more people living beyond 65 for an extended period of time, yet governments are stuck, between a rock and a hard place, because they can't change it. If my cousin who retired a couple of years ago, was able to retire with a full pension at 65, then in 15 years, when I get there, I should be able to retire, at that same age, even if my life expectancy is 20 years beyond that.

There are the disadvantages of increasing payouts as people live longer, and in an overall shrinking job market, needing older folks to retire to open up opportunities for younger people. As for senior centres, there is the same issue, 50 years ago, when you reached 65, most people couldn't see, they couldn't hear, many could barely walk, and facilities were designed for people in these conditions. Now we have laser eye surgery, hearing aides are now adjustable and barely visible and we can replace those arthritic knees with metal and plastic, heck we can even fix a bad heart, so the quality of life for a person 65+ is much better then it was in the 1960's. Which is good for the retiree because they can do stuff after their working years that they never had time to do before, they don't really need support facilities, because they are able to live well without them.