For Immediate Release: Wednesday, October 20th
Contact: Phoebe Silag or Karen Conner, news@epi.org 202-775-8810

Not all Americans are living longer than they were a generation ago. Today’s Snapshot shows that in 2006, higher-income men who reached age 65 were expected to live another 21.5 years, but lower-income men had a median life expectancy of only an additional 16.1 years. During a panel on Social Security and overall retirement security at the Oct. 5 America’s Fiscal Choices conference, experts Nancy Altman of Social Security Works and Teresa Ghilarducci of The New School stressed that raising the retirement age would reduce benefits, particularly for those lower-income workers with shorter life expectancies, who depend on Social Security for the bulk of their income. The video of the panel “Strengthening Social Security and Retirement Security” is available here.