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Retirement Nomads: Too poor to retire and too young to die

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Re: Retirement Nomads: Too poor to retire and too young to die

#81

Post by thinkmoore »

s_q_b wrote: post #28
hitekker wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but do you have more sources that convey the full impact of Social Security?

Basic stats: http://www.cbpp.org/archives/4-8-99socsec.htm You can go a lot deeper on this. Even today, about 50% of seniors would be below the poverty level without Social Security. That's mostly okay, because the majority of seniors have the major expenses covered by guaranteed benefit pensions, Medicare and private savings, usually in the form of a house. But things would get pretty grim without the government pro…

Whose parents have a guaranteed benefit pension these days?

As far as private savings, those disappear almost immediately in the face of a medical disaster.

Things are pretty grim indeed without the government programs (Social Security and Medicare).

Re: Retirement Nomads: Too poor to retire and too young to die

#82

Post by Shivetya »

kafkaesq wrote: post #6

Westfall — 5 feet 1 tall, with a graceful dancer’s body she honed as a tap-dancing teenager — is as stubborn as she is high-spirited. But she finds herself these days in a precarious place: Her savings long gone, and having never done much long-term financial planning, Westfall left her home in California to live in an aging RV she calls Big Foot, driving from one temporary job to the next. This is just shameful. You…

Did you read all these stories? Yes we have people in financial trouble but damn if they don't all keep digging the hole deeper and deeper. RVs, or any large vehicle purchase, are not wise uses of limited incomes. RVs are money pits even for those well off enough to keep them going all year.

Each story was the same, things go wrong and then they double down on making bad choices. Basic income isn't going to save these people, it might just make some less mobile, so they will be out of sight and people won't feel guilty any more.

We already transfer a fortune from the young to old in this country, doubled down on it with the prescription acts during the Bush presidency and then doubled down again with the ACA during Obama's presidency. We cannot save everyone, especially when they keep repeating the same mistakes.

Want to help those with limited money, the solution is not to give them more money. The solution is to get the government off their backs. When their income gets below a certain threshold we need to back off the taxes, fees, and similar, they pay or go to jail for or lose property for. I have no problem fixing their medical needs but the last thing that will help is to promote their continued wandering which forever prevents them from establishing themselves.

Re: Retirement Nomads: Too poor to retire and too young to die

#83

Post by [deleted] »

kafkaesq wrote: post #18
maerF0x0 wrote: post #3

Its tricky to feel sympathy w/ the lady in this article. She's part of the most benefitted generation, the "hardships" shown are induced by her own choices (expensive dinner, speeding ticket) and by world standards she's won the lottery to even be alive and living comfortably at her age. Alas, thats the trick with other people's stories-- difficult to project how it would feel if I were in their shoes.

$300 is beyond exorbitant for a speeding ticket. It's vindictive and exploitive.

[deleted]

Re: Retirement Nomads: Too poor to retire and too young to die

#84

Post by tamana »

refurb wrote: post #67
x5n1 wrote: post #4

Just shows that the US government can't afford to launch any wars or flex its muscles, when it does so it does it at the cost of all these people who have paid a life's worth of taxes, and have nothing show for it. The corporate interests and the government has eaten all that work and not given them enough to live off in their old age.

all these people who have paid a life's worth of taxes The social security benefits she receives are based off her lifetime earnings and thus the taxes she paid.

That's not true. SS taxes are an entry ticket, but the benefits are paid without regard to any sort of national investment of those twx payments.

Re: Retirement Nomads: Too poor to retire and too young to die

#85

Post by bad_user »

6stringmerc wrote: post #63
s_q_b wrote: post #8

Before Social Security, over 70% of seniors died in poverty. Today, that number is less than 10%. The amount of transfer payments to the elderly is so much larger than to any other age group, but unless you're willing to let those below the median income die in abject poverty, it's necessary.

I'm not an advocate of "debtors prisons" as a traditional concept, but I'm also very reluctant to sympathize with those living on a fixed income who refuse to pick up and move to an area where the cost of living adequately aligns with their financial means. As in, if a person is old and broke, they should be grateful to have the freedom to move to a cheap place to live, not bemoan that they can no longer afford their…

The youth are going to get old as well. And if you're young and you're not rich already, I bet you don't like birthdays that much.

Re: Retirement Nomads: Too poor to retire and too young to die

#86

Post by bradleyjg »

s_q_b wrote: post #28
hitekker wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, but do you have more sources that convey the full impact of Social Security?

Basic stats: http://www.cbpp.org/archives/4-8-99socsec.htm You can go a lot deeper on this. Even today, about 50% of seniors would be below the poverty level without Social Security. That's mostly okay, because the majority of seniors have the major expenses covered by guaranteed benefit pensions, Medicare and private savings, usually in the form of a house. But things would get pretty grim without the government pro…

What about assets? The highest median net worth cohort is households headed by those 65-69, second by those 70-74, third by 75 and older. (as of 2011)

It's one thing to give welfare to older people who can't work to keep them off the streets and quite another to give them welfare so they can give lavish inheritances to their children.

Re: Retirement Nomads: Too poor to retire and too young to die

#87

Post by Eridrus »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #3

Its tricky to feel sympathy w/ the lady in this article. She's part of the most benefitted generation, the "hardships" shown are induced by her own choices (expensive dinner, speeding ticket) and by world standards she's won the lottery to even be alive and living comfortably at her age. Alas, thats the trick with other people's stories-- difficult to project how it would feel if I were in their shoes.

I have mixed feelings too; She clearly had some significant misfortune with the housing bubble, and the US' incentives for people to buy homes is partly responsible, but financially she received a 20k windfall, gets social security, earns enough to not get food stamps, buys organic because she has some beliefs about non-organic food and the reason she is 50k in the hole is because she decided to buy a motor home.

So it sounds like she would be fine if she decided to spend her life/money differently, but she's set on spending money on things she can't really afford, so we get this article...

I'm all for basic income, redistribution of wealth, etc, but I don't think we have enough resources to finance everyone's aspirations via taxation.

Re: Retirement Nomads: Too poor to retire and too young to die

#88

Post by lukev »

knicholes wrote: post #14
kafkaesq wrote: post #6

Westfall — 5 feet 1 tall, with a graceful dancer’s body she honed as a tap-dancing teenager — is as stubborn as she is high-spirited. But she finds herself these days in a precarious place: Her savings long gone, and having never done much long-term financial planning, Westfall left her home in California to live in an aging RV she calls Big Foot, driving from one temporary job to the next. This is just shameful. You…

I find it unfair that I'm expected to make sacrifices while I'm young to ensure a comfortable retirement and also have to pay for other's retirements because they failed to do so.

Why? Why is that?

Say you encountered a local situation where you meet someone in real danger, and for some contrived reason only you are able to help them (say, they knock at the door of your remote house during a blizzard or something, if it helps to make it concrete.)

The majority of society would say it is your ethical duty to help a person in such a circumstance, even at moderate inconvenience to yourself. You wouldn't necessarily be expected to sacrifice your own safety, or even your own fortune; but in general, most people would frown on your choice of a fancier car or a European vacation over someone else's life, in this kind of local, specific scenario.

So what makes that ethical obligation go away, just because it can't be pinned on any specific individual? Why does this ethical logic apply in a 1:1 scenario, but not in the many:many situation we find in society?

It does. And that is the basic ethical argument behind government welfare.

There may be room for discussion over how dire someone's straits must be before it's ethically mandatory to step in and help; fair enough. Maybe a "working senior" qualifies, maybe they don't.

But that doesn't change the underlying point. Your life is _not_ just your own. You live in a society, and that comes along with ethical obligations, both in direct circumstances of your life and indirect social issues.

We as a society shouldn't abandon a physically or mentally handicapped person to the streets anymore than we should walk whistling past someone lying on the road, injured by a hit-and-run.

Existence as human beings, and humans in society in particular, does impose moral obligations.

Re: Retirement Nomads: Too poor to retire and too young to die

#89

Post by 6stringmerc »

DanBC wrote: post #75
6stringmerc wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an advocate of "debtors prisons" as a traditional concept, but I'm also very reluctant to sympathize with those living on a fixed income who refuse to pick up and move to an area where the cost of living adequately aligns with their financial means. As in, if a person is old and broke, they should be grateful to have the freedom to move to a cheap place to live, not bemoan that they can no longer afford their…

Is this parody? Or are you being serious? EDIT: Really, I can't tell.

For about 5 years, I volunteered with the elderly in rest homes. I saw what happens to us as we get old, infirm, sick, and lose the last of our mental faculties. I'm being somewhat serious, in that I've watched the elderly closely and believe they will vote en masse for their own desires and interests until the younger generations are completely unable to survive. I'd probably shock you by also holding a belief that voting and driving are two things senior citizens should prove competent to do in order to continue to be allowed to do them in society.
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