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Comment by grecy | Hacker News Reader

In Australia the official retirement age when you can start to receive a pension (or access your own retirement money without penalties) was recently moved up to 67.

The new Prime Minister just announced he won't raise it to 70, which was on the table. I think it's clear that's just a sign of things to come.

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I find it completely ridiculous and totally regressive that you have to live in Australia to receive your state pension. It’s like a final FU to the workers who have spent all their life contributing to it.

Meaning you can't retire abroad and receive your pension? How many months out of year do you have to reside in Australia?

If you’re out longer than a few months they cut your payout severely. Some friends sailing with us had to fly back every few months and check in.

So any pensioners planning to retire to SE Asia because of the lower cost of living are screwed.

This is incorrect. If you are overseas more that a few months, some of the extra's are cut, but not the basic amount.

Lots of Australian retirees live in Asia.

It's possible your friends had not lived in Australia long enough to fully qualify.

Aside from the economic physical reality (that is to say all pensions need to be financed from current stock of capital/labor), in Australia the government pension is generally funded through general revenue as a (kind of) means tested general social safety net.

It is not the same system as social security in other countries. You don't notionally "pay into" your account with variations on how much you will then be able to draw out.

We also have other employee pensions (though far fewer these days), and now the superannuation system (roughly 9.5% of full time earnings go into a compulsory tax effective defined contribution investment scheme)

What is lost in the discussion of retirement ages being bumped is that life expectancy has grown by two decades since the retirement age was introduced in the USA in 1935 [0][1][2]. The retirement age was originally past the point where most people died.

[0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/10/how-ret...

[1]: http://www.demog.berkeley.edu/~andrew/1918/figure2.html

[2]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPDYNLE00INUSA

I don't personally understand the expectation that average people be economically sustainable while jobless for two decades+. It makes sense to me to slowly increase the retirement age.

I know several people (i.e. 3 of my grandparents) who lived jobless that long or longer. At least half of their retirement years, they were physically and mentally incapable of holding their previous jobs, or even the most menial unskilled jobs.

One had half his body paralyzed by a stroke, and you couldn't really tell how much understanding he had of the world around him when he was alert. The other two had forms of alzheimer's that, eventually, left them occasionally speaking czech instead of english (they moved to the USA as children) and not recognizing their own children. The first sign they needed full-time care was when we caught one of them overdosing on ibuprofin- get a headache, take some, forget, take more, repeat. That, and leaving the gas stove on for hours.

I fully agree that the retirement age should start increasing, but there's definitely a point of diminishing returns. We may be living longer as a whole, but our physiology hasn't caught up enough to trust that those extra years can be spent making economically valuable contributions to society.

Agreed, I think that in health cases, there can't be an expectation for people to work. In a better world, our society as a whole would have better end of life support for when people are of ill health.

But, not everybody's mind slips. I'm hopeful that we will have better preventative measures for Alzheimer's and other mind or body crippling diseases soon. I do recall seeing some good news on the Alzheimer's front in the last year.

My first article mentions what you said: past a certain point, it may be more detrimental for some to work.

I'd buy that if not for the massive increase in year-over-year productivity that we as a society get from better technology. If that's not going toward spending less time working, where is it going? And is that where it should go?

I think it goes to the rich through systemic imbalance in companies and personal greed of those at the top. Wages should rise.

I don't mean that people should work hard until they die; people should be able to enjoy their lives while working -- hopefully at a job they enjoy, maybe more community oriented as their needs for large salaries to support families goes away.

I don't think that is happening, I think people are nearly destitute, and I see that as the problem.

Except what happens when you increase the same retirement age for farmers, construction workers, software developers, and teachers? The software developers and the teachers work more with their minds than with their bodies. The farmers and construction workers (putting aside the possibility that their age makes them less productive in physical labor and less likely to find jobs in their fields) would be at much higher risk for onsite injury, and who’s going to pay for that?

I’m fully expecting that to rise to 75 before I am able to retire. Feels like everything I get old enough to enjoy gets pushed out every time I get there.

What annoys me is that those making the decisions claim it’s for the betterment of the country which is fine but are totally unaffected by it.

When I was born in Australia in 1982 my life expectancy was 72. I realize it doesn't work like that.. but I feel a lot like the big old Clydesdale horse in Animal Farm, working until you drop.

or access your own retirement money without penalties

My own?! Holy crap, and I'm bitchin' here in the U. S. because I can't touch the 401K until 59.5.

you can, you just pay a 10% penalty. If you really need it, it's not the end of the world. A decent employer match would probably subsidize the penalty for most people.

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