Originally Posted by
rickair7777
But you need the rest of the story...
Average life expectancy was HIGHLY skewed by infant/youth mortality back then (especially from all those diseases the anti-vaxers are working so hard to bring back).
If you actually survived long enough to pay into SS, odds are good you'd collect. Healthy adults didn't keel over dead at 45 much more frequently than they do now. Many of them actually got quite a lot of exercise and ate organic (if fat-heavy) foods. Google the founding fathers... on average their life spans were closer to 70 than 40.
Point well taken.
Although neither of my grandfathers lived long enough to collect a penny. Socio Economically, they were no where near the founding fathers. All my grandparents died broke, my parents had to support them in their old age. The same with my support of my parents. I am the first generation to be financially secure.
Nor were they well educated. The median education was through 5th grade. Not a one graduated high school. Of their brothers and sisters, 10% died infant / childhood mortality.
I don’t think they were that atypical of those older workers retiring in the 1930s. YMMV
My grandmother on my dad’s side went through 3rd grade and never learned to drive. She thought I had lost my mind when I said I was going to high school. She confirmed that I had lost it when I got my bachelor’s degree. Just shook her head when I got my masters, and muttered what a stupid, stupid thing to do.