Working to 70 Is Not an Easy Fix to the Retirement Crisis

It may seem a simple solution to the brewing U.S. retirement crisis: Get people to work until 70 before retiring and 85 percent will have the money they need for retirement. But despite the math that attracts economists and lawmakers worried about funding Social Security and Medicare, it turns out that it is not so easy, reports Reuters . James Poterba, an MIT economics professor, pointed to the problem at a Brookings Institution forum on the topic last week. "Not everybody can work longer," said Poterba. He contrasted workers in physically demanding or unpleasant jobs to economists in academic offices comfortably churning out studies on Social Security fixes. The Urban Institute noted in a new study that about 10 percent of those over 50 had to leave their jobs because of health reasons. But Urban Institute economist Richard W. Johnson, who studied work records of people over 50 in the federally funded Health and Retirement Study, said ageism is driving far more older workers away from their jobs regardless of education, race, or gender.