Why Raising The Social Security Retirement Age Could Hit Latinos Hardest

*We pay millennials and young Latinos a lot of attention, but older Latinos are a big part of the workforce in stressful and dangerous occupations. Those elder Latinos will be affected by a rise in the retirement age – longer time working in more stressful jobs. “Six in 10 older Latino workers have jobs that are either ‘physically demanding’ or involve ‘difficult working conditions.’” VL

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By Daniel Maranas, Huffington Post Politics (5 miute read)

A new study showing that more than four in 10 older workers are employed in physically stressful occupations or work environments gives fresh ammunition to critics of raising the Social Security retirement age.

The report, “Still Working Hard: An Update On The Share Of Older Workers In Demanding Jobs,” released by the progressive think tank Center for Economic and Policy Research on Thursday, also found that workers in those jobs are disproportionately Latino, lacking a college degree and earning a low income.

The findings support many progressives’ claims that raising the Social Security retirement age would discriminate based on race and class by forcing many older workers to continue jobs that are taking a toll on their health.

“These data indicate that many workers would face serious hardship by working later into their life” if policymakers raise the Social Security retirement age, wrote the report’s authors, Cherrie Bucknor and Dean Baker.

In total, 43.8 percent of workers aged 58 or older — 10.2 million people — worked in either physically demanding jobs or difficult working conditions in 2014, according to the report.

Click HERE to read more.

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[Phtoto by Michelle Ress/Flickr]

Suggested reading

In these vignettes set in the fictional county of Belken along the Texas-Mexico border in the early to mid-twentieth century, Rolando Hinojosa sketches a landscape of Mexican Texans and Anglo Texans living side by side, in good times and bad.  “The world’s a drugstore: you’ll find a little bit of just about everything, and it’s usually on sale, too. Belken County, Texas is part of the world, and so, it’s no different; its people are packaged in cellophane and they, too, come in all sizes, shapes and in a choice of colors.” Some are brave; others are craven. Some are sharp, and some are dull.

Death calls on a regular basis in this first installment of Hinojosa’s acclaimed Klail City Death Trip Series.  Jehú Malacara was seven when his mother died and nine when his father passed. He has family, but it’s Don Víctor Peláez who takes him in and makes him an integral part of the Peláez Tent Show. When la muerte comes for Don Víctor, Jehú is orphaned again. Others die in bar room brawls, in a clandestine amorous tryst at the local Holiday Inn and on the street.

Hinojosa paints his canvas with a montage of life’s events—births, weddings, friendships and love affairs—but his brushwork all too frequently highlights the discrimination experienced by Mexican Americans. They lose their land to Anglos, are paid with rotten fruit for their labor and are refused admission to certain cafes. But life goes on. Young men go to war and old men remember their wars, whether the Mexican Revolution, World War II or the Korean War.

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