Normal Retirement Age - NRA

Well, it used to be 65. A lot of factory workers who smoked took early retirement at 55 with reduced wages and pension benefits, but increased time for fishing. And all this was great during the FDR Era. The average white male lived to about 67 and change, the average female, about 69. We died peacefully in a bed filled with soot from Camels and Menthol Parliaments a la Marlboro.

But then we stopped smoking. We stopped eating meat every night. We started working out. We stopped driving drunk. We started getting vaccinated for pretty much everything. We started drinking Diet Whatever. And lo and behold, today, the average life span for most Americans is around 82 if you're a male and 84 if you're a female. And that number is still growing.

So if you retire at 65, today, you need enough cash around (or investments that throw cash, or are sellable), to pay for 22 years of life instead of just two and change. Huge difference. Tons of very old people driving Uber to just make ends meet.

So what happens when they, en masse, run out of money? Answer: Bad things.

So yeah, that's why this term is even a Thing. We have to start discussing it more as a nation or we're going to start looking a lot more like Bangalore or Delhi than New York or Miami. Great nations don't let millions beg on the streets.