In 1900, the life expectancy of an average American male was about 46 years, whereas the average American female’s was roughly 48 years, averaging out to a 47-year life expectancy to people born in the United States some 119 years ago.
Today, according to recent statistics from trusted research agencies, the average age of U.S. retirees who are still alive was just under 60 years of age. However, the median living American retiree quit working at 62 years of age; further, the most common age, or the mode, of American retirees still alive today was 62 years of age, as well.
If you do the math, it’s easy to see that members of modern American society are working, in most cases, about 15 years longer than the average American born in 1900 was expected to live. Today, men and women living in the United States have a life expectancy of roughly 76 and 81 years, respectively – in simple terms, it’s safe to say that we currently live at least 30 years longer than Americans born in 1900, accounting for both males and females in the same statistic.
Since people are working longer than ever before, it’s important for modern Americans to sufficiently plan for their retirement. The average American retiree in today’s world will have to survive for about 15 years after they quit working, which is nothing short of a challenge. It’s not like the majority of senior citizens in the United States can simply re-enter the workforce. Those who are physically capable of doing so are largely restricted to lower-paying positions than what most Americans held during their traditional working career before retiring the first time around.
Social Security is a social program signed into law in 1935 that provides financial assistance to people after they’ve retired here in the United States. It works by paying out monthly cash amounts to Americans based on how much they’ve put into previous Social Security programs that covered their predecessors during retirement. Since the 1980s, Social Security’s benefits have largely shifted in favor of wealthy people – this is in direct opposition of helping who Social Security was intended to help when implemented by FDR over 80 years ago.
Since low-income people are not as likely as their better-off counterparts to be paid off by pensions during retirement, they really rely on Social Security payouts in retirement. Now, low-income and working-class Americans are not able to delay their payments – this causes them to receive less money per month that typically only lasts several years, leaving them out of luck in their latest years – whereas wealthier people are able to postpone when they take out their payments, resulting in more money per month and overall, says a former Social Security Administration official, Mr. Jim Roosevelt – he’s actually the grandson of FDR, believe it or not.
