Music Lover
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
He is out of touch with real seniors having physically demanding, unrewarding and high stress jobs. He is also out of touch with how much it costs to live in LCOL areas. The average SS benefit for 2022 is almost $20K a year. For a couple or two roommates, that is $40K, with no kids to raise, no income taxes, maybe a paid off home or low rent, camping vacations and qualifying for Medicare, that is a normal middle class life in many parts of the country. You'd think someone who is an economist would know that. We have many members here in LCOL areas who live well on that amount per year, often by choice.
There are a lot of people on this board living on several multiples of $40k a year. There are also people here living very comfortably on $40k a year or less. What we all have in common is that we consider our time to be more important than our bank account.
He may be a Harvard trained economist (big deal), but he certainly hasn't learned very much about real life.