Working Until 70 Isn't So Bad Provided You Feel 55
Denmark's recent move to increase the statutory retirement age to 70 for those born after 1970 — the highest in Europe — highlights an obvious and potentially troubling reality: Most of us are facing longer working lives, but that also means we need to remain healthier for longer. While linking the pensionable threshold to improving longevity is fair, up to a point, doing so risks exacerbating health inequalities because the poor become sick and die sooner than the rich. So the focus must be on extending healthy life expectancy for everyone.
Closing the gap between lifespans and so-called healthspans can help build public support for later retirement, because fewer years are spent with serious illness or disability, leaving more quality time with grandchildren or on the golf course or at the bingo hall. It can also benefit government finances by reducing pension expenses and costs associated with chronic disease and elderly care, while ensuring workers are able to keep working.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
12 minutes ago
El Salvador deportees are entitled to due process, judge rules
A federal judge is ordering the Trump administration to give the hundreds of men deported to El Salvador in March under the Alien Enemies Act the right to challenge their detentions as unlawful. In a 69-page order issued Wednesday, Judge James Boasberg gave the Trump administration until June 11 to come up with a plan to allow the men currently detained at El Salvador's notorious CECOT mega-prison to practice their due process rights. "In short, the Government must facilitate the Class's ability to seek habeas relief to contest their removal under the Act. Exactly what such facilitation must entail will be determined in future proceedings," Boasberg wrote. "Although the Court is mindful that such a remedy may implicate sensitive diplomatic or national-security concerns within the exclusive province of the Executive Branch, it also has a constitutional duty to provide a remedy that will 'make good the wrong done,'" he wrote. In what could portend the next chapter in a legal battle that has ensnared the Trump administration for nearly three months, Judge Boasberg reached the conclusion that the men -- regardless of their alleged criminal status -- deserve the right to challenge the government's claim. "Defendants plainly deprived these individuals of their right to seek habeas relief before their summary removal from the United States -- a right that need not itself be vindicated through a habeas petition. Perhaps the President lawfully invoked the Alien Enemies Act. Perhaps, moreover, Defendants are correct that Plaintiffs are gang members," Boasberg wrote. "But -- and this is the critical point -- there is simply no way to know for sure, as the CECOT Plaintiffs never had any opportunity to challenge the Government's say-so," he wrote. The Trump administration touched off a legal battle in March when it invoked the Alien Enemies Act -- an 18th century wartime authority used to remove noncitizens with little-to-no due process -- to deport two planeloads of alleged migrant gang members to El Salvador by arguing that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a "hybrid criminal state" that is invading the United States. An official with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged that "many" of the men deported on March 15 lack criminal records in the United States -- but said that "the lack of specific information about each individual actually highlights the risk they pose" and "demonstrates that they are terrorists with regard to whom we lack a complete profile."
Los Angeles Times
34 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
Judge says migrants sent to El Salvador prison must get a chance to challenge their removals
WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the Trump administration must give more than 100 migrants sent to a notorious prison in El Salvador a chance to challenge their deportations. U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg said that people who were sent to the prison in March under an 18th-century wartime law haven't been able to formally contest the removals or allegations that they are members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. He ordered the administration to work toward giving them a way to file those challenges. The judge wrote that 'significant evidence' has surfaced indicating that many of the migrants imprisoned in El Salvador are not connected to the gang 'and thus languish in a foreign prison on flimsy, even frivolous, accusations.' Boasberg gave the administration one week to come up with a manner in which the 'at least 137' people can make those claims, even while they're formally in the custody of El Salvador. It's the latest milestone in the monthslong legal saga over the fate of deportees imprisoned at El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center. After President Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in March and officials prepared to fly planeloads of accused gang members to El Salvador and out of the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, Boasberg ordered them to turn the planes around. This demand was ignored. Boasberg has found probable cause that the administration committed contempt of court after the flight landed. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele posted a taunting message on social media — reposted by some of Trump's top aides — that read 'Oopsie, too late.' The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled that anyone targeted under the Alien Enemies Act has the right to appeal to a judge to contest their designation as an enemy of the state. Boasberg said he was simply applying that principle to those who had been removed. Boasberg said the administration 'plainly deprived' the immigrants of a chance to challenge their removals before they were put on flights. Therefore, he says the government must handle the migrants cases now as they 'would have been if the Government had not provided constitutionally inadequate process.' In a remarkable passage, Boasberg wrote that he accepted the administration's declaration, filed under seal, providing details of the government's deal with El Salvador to house deportees and how that means the Venezuelans are technically under the legal control of El Salvador and not the United States. But, he said, believing those representations was 'rendered more difficult given the Government's troubling conduct throughout this case.' He noted the Supreme Court had to act again in the saga, to halt an apparent effort to get around that requirement with a late-night flight from Texas in April. He also noted parallels with another case where the Trump administration admitted it mistakenly deported a Maryland man to El Salvador and has been ordered by a judge, appellate judges and the Supreme Court to 'facilitate' his return.
New York Times
38 minutes ago
- New York Times
Morten Harket, a-ha's Lead Singer, Reveals Parkinson's Diagnosis
Morten Harket, the lead singer of the Norwegian synth-pop band a-ha, best known for its 1985 hit single 'Take on Me,' said Wednesday that he had Parkinson's disease. Harket, 65, revealed his illness in an interview with Jan Omdahl, a-ha's biographer, on the band's website. Harket did not say when he received the diagnosis. 'I've got no problem accepting the diagnosis,' he said. 'With time I've taken to heart my 94-year-old father's attitude to the way the organism gradually surrenders: 'I use whatever works.'' His announcement comes days after the 40th anniversary of the release of a-ha's first album, 'Hunting High and Low,' on June 1, 1985. The first single from the album, 'Take on Me,' became a global hit that year, reaching No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States on the basis of the song's infectious synthesizer hook and innovative video that mixed animation with live action. In the interview, Harket said he took medicine to manage his symptoms. Last June, he traveled to the United States, where surgeons at the Mayo Clinic implanted, inside the left side of his brain, electrodes that receive electrical impulses from a small pacemaker-like device in his upper chest. He underwent the same procedure in December for the right side of his brain. The treatment, known as deep brain simulation, is an established treatment for Parkinson's. Omdahl writes that the treatment has helped keep Harket's symptoms in check. Still, problems with his voice 'are one of many grounds for uncertainty about my creative future,' he said. The dopamine supplements that he takes affect his voice, but his underlying symptoms become more pronounced if he doesn't take them, he said. Parkinson's is a progressive and incurable disease that affects the central nervous system and causes tremors, muscle stiffness, impaired balance and other symptoms. More than 10 million people worldwide are estimated to be living with Parkinson's, according to the Parkinson's Foundation. Harket, who has released six solo albums, said he has worked on songs in recent years. A-ha formed in Oslo in 1982. Harket and his two bandmates, Paul Waaktaar-Savoy and Magne Furuholmen, spent their early days playing in London before they eventually landed a contract with Warner Bros. Though a-ha is largely known as a one-hit wonder in the United States for 'Take On Me,' its second single, 'The Sun Always Shines on TV,' cracked the Top 20 of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1985. The band went on to sell millions of copies of its albums worldwide, and has performed before audiences in 38 countries. Its most recent studio album, 'True North,' was issued in 2022.
