Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Money is Tight: More seniors are working longer Pt 2

It’s the kind of article that would make some people cover their eyes while reading the paper.

Headline: Seniors' employment rate on rise, data shows (July 22, QMI Agency)

First line: More seniors are staying in the work force for longer and working harder, according to government figures, triggering renewed calls from one of the country's biggest unions for pension reform.

I say, scary, very scary.

And I also say more than pension reform is needed. In an earlier post I said that we need to reform the North American lifestyle because “we seem to be chewing through our planet faster than necessary.”


["Money is tight and smokes ain't cheap!"]

On top of that, lifestyle reform needs to come - in part - in the form of a retreat. Since 1996, senior employment (for both men and women) has been on the rise, due in part to financial necessity, and pension reform cannot be accomplished without making contributions higher - unless we create more, new, sustainable jobs and develop and maintain a bigger workforce that will contribute to a healthier pension so that seniors can stop working and go home.

I’m dreaming, of course. More, new, sustainable jobs? When have they ever existed?

We must retreat to smaller dreams, homes, apartments, cars, trucks, meals, refrigerators, closets, demands upon the planet and our finances.

Canada is becoming such an expensive place to live, isn’t it?

***

I suppose if we don’t know we could ask our parents and grandparents after they come home from work.

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