What benefit is there to hiring someone that could retire pretty much at any minute? Or someone who didn't have the foresight to plan for their future in a manner that allowed them to retire at a reasonable age?
You should plan for living expenses through your whole life, and you might well live to 100--and you pretty much have to plan for that, because being 90 and running out of money would be very unpleasant. But if you work from 22 to 62 and live 'til 100, then you'll have worked for only 40% of your life, so you have to cover all the expenses of your entire life during that short period.
If, on the other hand, you work until you're 72, then you have an extra 25% of time to save and a 17% decrease in non-working time. The math gets much better.
The results of this math get worse if you believe we'll see improvements in life extension during your life. If you live an extra 10 years, you probably need to work at least another few years.
In summary, saying people should retire at 62 seems short-sighted to me.
It isn't a comfortable life, but it is manageable provided the ACA stays in place. If the ACA is repealed, then I'll have problems and may have to emigrate to the UK where I also hold citizenship.
> What benefit is there to hiring someone that could retire pretty
> much at any minute?
> Or someone who didn't have the foresight to plan for
> their future in a manner that allowed them to retire at
> a reasonable age?
Second, who stays at a job for years on end today?
Third, you could say this about pretty much any group. Why hire a young woman who is just going to get knocked up and quit? (Seriously, this is/was the argument against hiring young women.)
American employers use you up and spit you out when you no longer taste good.