He’s 79 and working fulltime at Walmart: A sobering truth for those w/o pensions | Hacker News Reader

He’s 79 and working fulltime at Walmart: A sobering truth for those w/o pensions

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28 pointsalxmdev13 comments

More people in IT should treat pensions more seriously.

What pensions?

A 70 year old man having 12 years left on a mortgage sure seems like strange math going on.

People should guarantee higher pensions for the elderly. In fact, we should pay them more than they made when they when tHey were working. Take the money from the wealthy.

A weird thought:

If you do this, it introduces an additional disincentive for wealthy people regarding public healthcare.

Not only would they have to carry the tax burden for the healthcare, they would also have to pay for the additional years of lifespan that result from improved health.

I'm not taking a stance either way, and in fact I have been impressed that some countries in Latin America have a functioning public health apparatus while far richer countries like the USA struggle to put such a thing in place. Just think it's an interesting multiplicative effect.

An even weirder thought:

What if we had a national system that you pay into your entire life that will privide a living wage to retire on, even if you didn’t save additional money?

Either that or maybe we can start blending up the uber rich in this country to make a cheap food source (like soylent green) to feed to the weakest amoung us (like the elderly).

It seems like our greed-stricken society has no desire to help those even when they worked their whole life to benefit society.

Data sources? Evidence? Anything at all to back this up?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/america-new... That seems counter to you point. Got more than rhetoric here?

Charities are the exact opposite of what a generous society is, though. There should be no need for charity (or elderly people working) in a wealthy country. Charities should be for helping third worlders.

Obviously having to work as a greeter at the age of 79 with spinal problems is not a great situation, and people deserve security in old age. But is working to this age really the end of the world? This guy will probably live a longer life and experience a slower decline in health than if he were sitting at home watching TV.

"... is working to this age really the end of the world?" Yes, it literally is the end of the world for him. Later in the article it says the average life expectancy is 79!!

Not that it matters too much in the context, but the average life expectancy is the average at birth not 79. The man should expect to live into his 90s if he makes it to 79.

> But is working to this age really the end of the world? This guy will probably live a longer life and experience a slower decline in health than if he were sitting at home watching TV.

Isn't how he wants to spend his senior years for him to decide, not us?

I guess this is for the individual to answer but my question to you is: would you wish something like this on your parents or older relatives?

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