150 Years Wow

Since 1900 we’ve added 30 years to the typical lifespan. A recent study suggests that the normal life span may be as long as 150 years. This is a gift, and those of us living today should be grateful. At the same time this change in the human condition is one of the most significant in human history. To take advantage of this abundance of life we have to change, and those changes will likely be profound. 

For example, it needs to be understood at an early age that the richness of the final years will depend primarily on the preparation both financial and physical that one undertakes when they are younger. Income support and medical care paid for by someone else will be minimal at best. With our medical advances it is possible that at some point there will be one person over the age of 65 for every worker between the ages of 20 and 65. Further the percent of GDP devoted to healthcare is on its way to 25 percent or more. Most of our current healthcare dollars are spent on those over 65. When millions of Americans are 100 or more, who will pay for their healthcare, housing, food? As a demographer once told me, the current approach does not compute. Those who rely on income support from others and continuously need expensive medical care because they are unhealthy are going to have a different long term life experience than those who don’t. 

This presents us with a short term and long term challenge. In the short term we have to get those over 45 to a better, if not optimal, place. Fortunately employers have begun stepping it up. Refocusing their benefit programs on the individual wellness, both physical and financial, of their employees, employers are delivering messages and providing solutions to a demographic group that entered the workforce totally unprepared to deal with the long life they have been given. It is critical that government policy encourages this workplace trend. 

Those younger than 45, and generations to come, need to learn how to look at life differently. I am not sure of all of the conscious and subconscious assumptions that we need to unlearn. There are probably many. Let me give you one. There is considerable discussion that people will have to work later because of the current economic environment. But the belief of most is that they should retire as soon as they can, in their 50s if possible and, according to Social Security, age 62 in practice. They feel it is their right. That thinking must change. People must expect to work longer because public support in old age is going to be limited and because working longer is a reasonable exchange for the long life they have been granted.    

In the short term, employers are helping and will continue to help but in the long term we need a cultural shift in expectations. This is not a workplace challenge but a reality we all have to help address in whatever way we can.