America’s retirement nightmare has arrived

The American Dream once came with an actual finish line. For much of the 1950s and 1960s, the script was simple enough for a child to understand. You worked hard, stayed loyal to your employer, and bought a modest home. Then, somewhere around 65, you retired with enough dignity to enjoy your remaining years. Retirement was the final reward for showing up, day after day, year after year. That promise has been dismantled piece by piece, transforming the American Dream into a cruel form of comedy where the joke is always on the worker.

Today, retirement is less of a life stage and more of a fairy tale parents tell their kids to help them sleep at night. According to recent data, 42 percent of Americans over 60 believe they will literally work until they die. Far from being pessimistic, they are, in many ways, responding to reality. There are already a record 11.6 million Americans aged 65 and older still punching the clock. While corporate PR teams love to profile the occasional 72-year-old who greets people at Walmart, it’s a poor substitute for an honest assessment. For millions, it’s Plan B after Plan A was sacrificed to stagnant wages, disappearing pensions, and decades of economic promises that somehow always benefited everyone except the people doing the actual work.

Naturally, the language surrounding this economic execution has become deeply Orwellian. Americans are actively encouraged to “reframe retirement.” We are told that 70 is the new 50. Apparently, spending your golden years working........

© The Hill