Since when does retirement mean living off money you didn't labor for? The whole point is the opposite - you can only retire if you have enough resources/income (pension, 401K, gold bars, etc) that you can support yourself without working.

In the US we have a problem that a lot of seniors can't afford to retire.

▲

lenerdenator 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Since when does retirement mean living off money you didn't labor for? The whole point is the opposite - you can only retire if you have enough resources/income (pension, 401K, gold bars, etc) that you can support yourself without working.

Since inflation was a thing, so since ever.

If you take the money you labored for and put it in an account without accruing any sort of interest, you will have exactly what you earned to live off of without working.

Since that happens over a span of decades - let's say forty years - that needs to account for the reduction in value brought about by inflation. You offset that using interest generated by loans issued by the institution that operates the account (which is not you laboring) or by returns from owning equities (which is the output of other people's labor).

I suppose the gold bars you mention could rise in value enough to offset inflation without resorting to taking a slice of someone else's economic output, but that's not how most retirement accounts are backed.

> In the US we have a problem that a lot of seniors can't afford to retire.

We also have the problem that a lot of people at the beginning and middle of their lives don't have the standard of living that their parents had despite doing all of the "right" things.

▲

infamouscow 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> In the US we have a problem that a lot of seniors can't afford to retire.

Gen Z and majority of millennials are completely unsympathetic to this problem.

From their perspective, older generations have actively hindered their careers and financial opportunities to the point where they know they'll have to work their entire lives. They also know the US is marching towards financial calamity when Medicare becomes insolvent in the early 2030s, and don't anticipate Medicare or Social Security to exist when they're older.

	▲	pesus 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Elaborating on this viewpoint: those seniors also had their chance to save for retirement in the cushiest and most prosperous economy of all time. If they didn't choose to do that because they wanted to party or "find themselves", that's on them, and they still got to live it up for cheap while simultaneously removing the ability of future generations to do the same. No millennial or gen Z is going to care that they didn't bother to save a few bucks in a time when houses and college cost as much as a McChicken. Obviously there are exceptions, but that's the general perception.