Quote:
Originally Posted by Thunderball
You're absolutely right. There is no magic bullet.
However, your idea, while prudent, doesn't address the whole issue either.
Say you have 50-60 year olds who choose to retire early because they do not want to work anymore and have the money to so. Even if that is only 10% of the boomers, that's still enough to tip the scales the wrong way. They make not draw from CPP for 10-20 years. However, their tax burden drops since they earn much less, and they still use government programs, especially healthcare.
Now, imagine these people live another 25-40 years, so say the average person lives to 85 by then, and that's a lot of years of untaxed, expensive healthcare, since elderly people draw from that system the most. Normally, this isn't an issue because in the past, more taxpayers take their place. Yes, many older workers will claim they've been paying for their programs their entire life, but in reality, they've been paying for the generation before them, and this time for the baby boomers, there aren't going to be enough workers to pay for them. Having the lower and middle class seniors work an extra 3-5 years will only postpone the inevitable.
They'd essentially have to postpone CPP until the mid to upper 70s to make the hit from the baby boomers diminish via attrition, but that is political suicide.
Its really a policy nightmare.
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I agree with you.
The CPP and 401 were designed for a life expectancy of about 70 years back to 40 years ago (or 30 years ago). Now it is 85 or even longer (if any magic biologic medication shows up to help extend life).
The final solution is everybody in North America will have to lower the level of their quality life including health care, retirement age, more taxes, etc..