Retirement Age

The County Council wants to raise the retirement age for appointed and elected county officials from 50 to 60 years.However, county attorneys question whether an employee's right to retire at a certain age can be rescinded.A bill raising the age at which officials may collect their pensions was introduced unexpectedly by the council in the final minutes of its Tuesday night meeting. The measure was sponsored by all seven council members, ensuring its passage."When it's introduced by allseven, you don't give a damn what anybody thinks," said Councilman George Bachman, D-Linthicum, when asked if he expected opposition fromemployees affected by the bill.

When economic times are tough and the daily headlines remind us of our nation's deficit challenge, it's easy to use misinformation and anecdotes of abuse to demonize certain entitlement programs. Unfortunately, this has the unintended effect of stereotyping whole groups of people as lazy, unmotivated or, worse yet, committing intentional fraud. First, it was those living on the edge of poverty and relying on Medicaid for health care and other critical support services who took the hit. Now it's the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)

CHICAGO -- A controversial rule mandating that U.S. airline pilots retire by their 60th birthday has been repealed, ending a half-century of infighting among pilots. The U.S. Senate unanimously approved legislation Wednesday night raising the retirement age for pilots to 65, a standard observed by the rest of the world. The House of Representative unanimously approved the measure Tuesday night. The new legislation was signed yesterday by President Bush. The retirement age rule has long been a point of contention among pilots, especially this decade as a downturn stalled promotions for younger pilots and upended retirement plans for those at the end of their careers.

Everyone needs to put something on the table for any resolution of the debt crisis to move forward ("McConnell key to 'cliff' deal," Dec. 27). I am newly retired and living on a fixed income, but I will rejoin the work world if I think I need the added security. I understand how Medicare and Social Security work, but I also recognize that my generation and the one just before mine are getting a subsidy that is too big for the country to sustain. I would put Medicare and Social Security on the table.

WASHINGTON -- The retirement age, already scheduled to rise from 65 to 67, may have to be increased further because so many Baby Boomers could live into old age that it would overwhelm the Social Security system, the new Social Security commissioner said yesterday."

The County Council tonight will discuss legislation to raise the retirement age for appointed and elected officials from 50 to 60 years.Though the bill is sponsored by all seven council members and therefore assured of approval, it will not be voted on tonight. County attorneys have noted legal problems with the bill as written, Council Chairwoman Virginia P. Clagett, D-West River, said.The bill applies to all employees who retire on or before July 1.The lawyers found it is illegal to rescind an employee's vested right to retire at a certain age, Clagett said.

BOSTON - As if it weren't bad enough to see the image of "senior citizens" transformed into "greedy geezers," now they're morphing into "lazy geezers." It seems that Social Security recipients are gradually being redefined as members of the leisure class. The plan to reform Social Security by partially privatizing accounts is going nowhere, but another idea is creeping into the public consciousness: Raise the age of retirement. This notion recently came up in the Senate, where the average age is 60 and heavy lifting consists of dialing for dollars.

When Bill Donahue opened his boat business in Annapolis three years ago, he joined a growing trend among retiring baby boomers. He turned a part-time hobby into a full-time job. Protirement, a term coined during the early 1990s, in part describes the secondary careers taken on by many workers who find their savings and Social Security won't be enough to sustain their lifestyles after they reach the traditional retirement age of 65. Those without financial...

A commission including members of Congress from both parties will propose a sweeping plan today to shore up Social Security, calling for the establishment of personal investment accounts and a gradual increase in the retirement age to 70.The report is the most comprehensive package of recommendations for remaking Social Security in preparation for the baby boom generation's retirement. It says the changes would keep Social Security solvent for at least 75 years without raising taxes, even as it trades some reductions in guaranteed benefits for the higher, if less certain, returns of the financial markets.

Hundreds of experienced teachers and administrators in Baltimore County, many of them products of a hiring boom in the 1950s and '60s, are coming of retirement age and leaving the system, but few seem to fear a "brain drain" in county schools.At least 164 Baltimore County teachers and administrators will retire this year, about 25 more than the average over the past decade, said Helen E. Eder, a specialist in the office of retirement.The jump this year may also be due to the fact that with teachers at the end of a three-year contract, with no pay raise next year and with retirement benefits based on one's highest salary, many eligible educators are deciding that now is as good a time as any to get out.Baltimore County educators see pluses and minuses in the fact that retiring administrators and teachers, many with more than 30 years of experience, are being replaced by people who may have fewer than 20."

While America's CEOs are fretting about the government's so-called "fiscal cliff," millions of American workers face a financial disaster that gets much less media attention. There's a half-trillion-dollar deficit in the nation's worker retirement benefits. The Great Recession, which decimated retirement assets, played a big role in building this lesser-known cliff. But many corporations could have avoided the problem by shoring up these funds during the boom years. Instead, they siphoned pension assets for other profit-boosting purposes.

It seems to me that House Speaker John Boehner and President Barack Obama can close the deal and avoid the "fiscal cliff" ("Progress elusive in fiscal talks," Dec. 14). The Republicans need to agree to increase the taxes for the wealthiest 2 percent while the Democrats need to agree to increase the age for Medicare eligibility from 65 to 67 - perhaps by three months a year beginning in 2015. The early retirement age for Social Security also needs to be increased from 62 to 65 - also by three months a year beginning in 2016.

We are now hurtling toward the so-called fiscal cliff, a package of automatic tax increases and spending cuts for 2013 designed to stampede Congress and the president into a "grand bargain" on deficit reduction, to include new revenues (translation: taxes) and entitlement reforms (translation: cuts to Medicare and Social Security). Social Security constitutes roughly 20 percent of the federal budget. Deficit hawks insist that the U.S. cannot afford benefits at the current level. They are wrong.

While some reporters shy away from holiday stories, I cheerfully dive right into those toy drives, festivals, Santa appearances, seasonal parades and concerts. But this year, I have written only two and am retiring before the real quest for all things Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa reaches a feverish pitch. I leave on a happy note, on the heels of two more published tales that hopefully spread the "goodness" news. Those stories centered on a storm-ravaged small town that served Thanksgiving dinner to hundreds of its own and a man who strung about 50,000 lights, put up dozens of trees and filled his yard with all manner of diverse decorations to raise money for a children's cause.

Efforts to avert the "fiscal cliff" offer great drama, but they won't solve Washington's budget woes and could precipitate another recession - or worse. The Budget Act of 2011 requires the president and Congress to agree on a nine-year, $1.2 trillion deficit reduction program, or annual defense and non-entitlement outlays will be automatically cut $107 billion on Jan. 1. At the same time, the Bush tax cuts, payroll tax reductions and other assorted programs expire. Altogether, $136 billion in annual spending reductions and $532 billion in additional taxes could trigger cataclysmic consequences for the economy.

Jim Nicholas lay in a hospital bed recovering after a heart procedure when his attorney called with life-changing news: The Social Security Administration would pay him more than $206,000 in disability benefits, bringing an end to his nine-year court battle. Ever since he began suffering from heart failure, Nicholas and his wife, Yvonne, had been trying to prove he was sick enough to get benefits from the agency, which not only administers Social Security but provides support for those too disabled to work.

AMERICANS aren't saving enough for retirement. It's a deeply troubling trend, especially because 76 million baby boomers will retire over the next 15 years. That will put enormous pressure on the Social Security system, which was never envisioned as a full-fledged retirement program. Private savings and company pensions are supposed to sustain a retiree's standard of living. Congress is looking at ways to boost retirement savings. A bill approved by the House Ways and Means Committee last week seeks to encourage workers to set aside more of their paychecks in IRA and 401(k)

The County Council raised the retirement age for elected and appointed officials from 50 to 60 Wednesday night.The seven-member council unanimously voted in favor of the pension law revision, though council members George F. Bachman, D-Linthicum, and Diane R. Evans, R-Arnold, wanted to withdraw the legislation for further study.The bill applies to workers hired after last Dec. 1.Bachman and Evans were concerned that the legislation may be open to legal challenge by employees hired between that date and the day the new law takes effect.

Social Security advocates had a message last week for an audience of Maryland seniors on the 77th anniversary of the federal benefits program: Let's not be the last generation to retire. The Alliance for Retired Americans and Social Security Works attempted to enlist about 50 retirees at the Council House apartments in Suitland as part of an election-year army to spread the word about the positive impact they said Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare have had on generations of Marylanders.

In regard of your editorial about fixing Social Security ("Social Security can be fixed," April 26), why do you always blame the Republicans? For two years, President Barack Obama had control of the two chambers, so why did he not fix the problem? He passed the health care program. Since he had the majority, why not? Here is a solution: Raise the retirement age to 70, stop paying out to the children who have lost a parent, and stop paying benefits to people who don't pay into the Social Security program.