BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said America could dodge a ‘retirement crisis’ by encouraging people to work for longer — here’s why 1 labor economist thinks he’s dead wrong

He raised the point that more Americans are retiring and their retirements are increasing by length. This, he claims, is having a “massive impact on the country’s retirement system” — specifically the nation’s Social Security coffers, which are quickly running out of money.

“What’s the solution here?” Fink pondered in his letter. “No one should have to work longer than they want to. But I do think it’s a bit crazy that our anchor idea for the right retirement age — 65 years old — originates from the time of the Ottoman Empire.”

Fink never claimed to have the answer, but he did suggest that encouraging Americans to work for longer “with carrots rather than sticks” may help alleviate certain retirement-related economic challenges. But not everyone agrees.

Labor economist Teresa Ghilarducci, a renowned thought-leader on U.S. retirement issues, slapped down Fink’s suggestion in a recent interview with Bloomberg's Sonali Basak.

“If you think, Mr. Fink, that people working longer — maybe just one year or two years longer — will mean that people won’t go into their old age without being downwardly mobile into poverty after being a middle class worker, or you think working longer will maintain people’s living standards, you’ll be wrong,” she said. Here’s why Ghilarducci is against raising the retirement age.

It’s not fair

Ghilarducci thinks people need to dive deeper into the data around American life expectancy and how that relates to working longevity.

“Not everyone is living longer,” she stressed. “There is a slice of the population that have had good healthcare [and] have had the kinds of jobs that enhance their health and their wellbeing and their skills. They’re living longer.

“But there are some parts of our economy, of our America, where actually the longevity is going down. Deaths of despair, the suicides, the opioid addiction [and] even the kinds of jobs that people have are shortening their lives.”

Ghilarducci claims this “inequality” in society makes this common “live longer, work longer” argument impossible for a large portion of Americans.

Specifically, she highlighted the plight of older workers in pink collar jobs (care-oriented careers, historically considered to be women’s work) and “light” blue collar jobs that may require a lot of engagement with a computer.

“The service sector — taking care of older people, taking care of children — that requires a lot of heavy lifting, a lot of stooping and bending, a lot of physical activity and those jobs break bodies down,” Ghilarducci explained.

“The computer has made some aspects of jobs easier, [especially] on the knees, but the requirements for intense concentration, keen eyesight and actually being able to speed up your work because of increased surveillance has actually made those jobs harder too.”

Ghilarducci claims the jobs older Americans often have “can raise cortisol levels, increase inflammation and cause more metabolic disorders and early death.” As a result, she says making them work for longer is not a viable solution to the nation’s retirement challenges.

Some don’t have a choice

One part of America’s so-called “retirement crisis” that Ghilarducci thinks experts — “including Larry Fink” — overlook is the fact that “most people cannot decide when they retire.”