In the United States, there is no such thing as a mandatory retirement age. Certain retirement benefits become available to people on their 65th birthday, such as the ability to sign up for Medicare, but a person cannot legally be told that they have to retire at any particular age. Some industries can, for health and safety reasons, set age limits for certain tasks and that is how some people wind up retiring from a job even if they do not want to, but that is an industry specific condition.
What Is The Official Retirement Age?
The official retirement age in the United States as of 2018 is 65 years old. It is used as a guideline for being able to sign up for programs such as Medicare, and it is also used as a deadline for people to be able to start receiving benefits from their retirement programs.
What Is The Average Retirement Age In America?
One part of the American dream is to be able to retire long before the age of 65, and there are several ways people can achieve that dream if they start planning at an early age. An age that many people strive to retire at is 50 years old, but very few people actually retire at that age. The majority of people who retire close to the age of 50 are people who work for municipalities, police officers and career military people.
The actual average age of retirement in the United States is 63 years of age. This means that some people are achieving the goal of early retirement, but the majority of people are able to shed their work responsibilities right around the age of 65.
The Future Of Retirement
The average life span in the United States was on the rise for many years thanks to advances in medical science and this has sparked a discussion about possibly moving the retirement age to 67 1/2. One of the problems this idea is experiencing is that the American life span has started to level out and is not showing the strong upward trend it used to show.
The problem with moving the retirement age to 67 1/2 is that certain financial and medical benefits would also be moved. Many people are concerned that people at age 65 would be without good health coverage for two and a half years and they might have problems accessing their retirement benefits. This would force 65 and 66 year old people to have to re-enter the workforce.
While the retirement age is not a legally binding timeline, it still has a tremendous effect on how Americans retire from the work force. The current average age of retirement is 63 years old, but that could change if the retirement age is raised and older people are forced to find jobs to survive until their retirement benefits become available.
Jim Treebold is a North Carolina based writer. He lives by the mantra of “Learn 1 new thing each day”! Jim loves to write, read, pedal around on his electric bike and dream of big things. Drop him a line if you like his writing, he loves hearing from his readers!