@Rich Powers
If your country has an official retirement age yes you can quit work and get government money. In the USA I think it is 65?, as in Canada, or it might be 66 as I checked depending when you were born. Seems if you are a Baby Boomer in the USA you can retire sooner than younger generations....not fair but that's another subject.
Regardless, when you reach official retirement age you have a right to quit work whether you have "enough" savings or not, and doesn't matter how healthy or able bodied you are and you are entitled to government money enough to live on and since there's no socialized healthcare in the USA you get that covered(medicare) also if you are retired. And food stamps also? That becomes an entitlement. You have to have some time in your life to not have to work and enjoy living. In all civilized countries you have a right to quit work at a young enough age and have some time before you get sick and die. The majority of European countries have it better than North America. Especially Switzerland. So does China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, etc.
That's an interesting take on these various social programs.
The money paid out after retirement isn't supposed to be free, however. In Canada, workers (along with employers) pay into the Canada Pension Plan, and then draw an income from that plan after retirement.
Here in Canada, we have an Old Age Security benefit paid out after retirement. It's not enough to live on (about C$600 a month) but it helps.
We have universal basic health care in Canada, and a few more things get covered after retirement.
But none of this is 'free'. The theory is that you pay for these services through various forms of taxation, which is much more here than in the U.S., but much less than in other places where there are more services (such as some places in Europe). There are even countries, such as Germany, that make all forms of education universal, paid for through taxes.
I'm not going to get into the argument of which way is better, high taxes and lots of services, or low taxes and scrounging your way through life's bad moments. But I do think it's telling that European countries are consistently at the top of the lists of the world's happiest and contented countries. Canada is up there as well.
Of course, if your government has low taxes, and still doles out lots of free services, you'll run high deficits, which is why the U.S. is trillions of dollars in debt.
And even governments that have high taxes manage to find ways to spend more money than they take in, and not plan properly for what's coming in the future.
I think the bottom line, though, is that you can't always count on the government to support you. You have to take matters into your own hands when you work and save for when you don't.
And getting back to NPR and public radio/television, obviously you can't count on the government doing the right things any more.
@artisan-radio OAS is more than $600 a month. It keeps going up with cost of living and I recently got a big raise. It is now about $800 a month and the same more or less for CPP.
If you have no savings at all....you worked all your life making "nothing" you have no inheritance you still have the right to retire when you reach the official retirement age and there's the guaranteed annual supplement in addition if you have no money. I also think based on what someone I know did, you can't be told to sell your house if you have one if you retire and have no investments or savings. Besides healthcare if you need care and you can't afford to pay for it the government pays and you pay what you can afford. No one goes out in the street and dies in a civilized country. There has to be some socialism along with a capitalist system as not all can "make it" and have the financial ability to retire and be self sufficient. but you are entitled to retire still.
I was told by my financial adviser to not worry about denying myself something because you think you need money for your care. By the way check out life in Switzerland!!
I wasn't going to get into it but I have never received any kind of funding in my life other than paychecks from working.. until I "retired". When I applied for Social Security, the lady said to me tha I had a lot of years showing no income, I nodded and shrugged, because though I've consistently worked, a majority of those years tended to be under the table, I've lived on a tourist island over 40 years and it tends to come with the territory.
Anyway, needless to say, all I get from SS is about $400 a month - or that's what it was initially, until Medicare extracted $189 a month, leaving me barely $200 -- This really shocked me and not something I expected.. I thought Medicare was free (or is it Medicaid? I'm not sure what is what, but one is automatically applied at retirement) - Anyway, I objected and they told me I could apply for SSI (Social Security Supplement Income) which would absorb that cost and give me a few hundred a month to boot.. So I did that, now I get about $600 a month.. But I being told I am eligible to also get a few hundred SNAP (food stamps) each month.. AND some ther kind of free "insurance" that allows up to $250 a month fr food (that does not roll over if not used) ... I havent applied for that yet.. it all seems surreal too me.. So if apply (which I probably will) I can get all this for doing nothing, for not working. But if I go back to work, I lor most of it.. It seems so crazy...
So that's what I mean by "free money".
So yeah.. I'll take it! But if it were all to dissapear tommorow I would be disappointed but wouldn't be pissed off about it, because it seems kind of ludicrous that it's being dished out to me - or any able bodied citizen. It just gives people a reason too not work.
Not that I'm complaining. It just seems surreal.
.. you can't be told to sell your house if you have one if you retire and have no investments or savings. .
Maybe not, but if you own your home free and clear but dont pay your property tax and they will certainly take your house from you. I've known someone it happened to - though it was his own fault, he just ignored it, said his Momma left it to him and he wasn't going to pay taxes.. he didn't, and eventually lost the house. -- There was probably more to the story, but in the end you dont really ever own anything unless the taxes are paid too.