ABSTRACT

The retirement strategy has produced an incalculable waste of human resources and insupportably high financial costs. Private employers and unions are not likely to move in a quick and unified way to throw out the retirement strategy or to adopt the proposed jobs strategy. The federal government may try to lower the Social Security benefits of private-sector employees to discourage them from early retirement when, simultaneously, some federal departments may be seeking to solve their own worker surplus problems by fostering early retirement. Many employers, unions, government officials, and legislators will not agree that the retirement strategy is a disaster and should be junked. The failure of the public-sector and private-sector leaders to act in a timely and coherent way will further confuse and complicate the financial and social calculations that the opponents and proponents of change will use to support their arguments.