The alleged wise men of DC don’t know any of this

Life Expectancy of the Living Dead

Paul Krugman, New York Times

Regular readers know that a lot of this blog’s time is spent on intellectual zombies — beliefs and concepts that have been killed by evidence but that keep shambling forward nonetheless, trying to eat our brains. And now that talk has turned once again to Grand Bargains and all that, I see that we’re once again seeing the Social Security/life expectancy zombie: we live longer, so shouldn’t retirement wait?

What you need to know:

1. The relevant life expectancy is life expectancy at or near retirement age. Falling infant mortality doesn’t make a case for delaying Social Security — and that’s important, because gains have been much less striking at age 65 than at birth.

2. Gains in life expectancy have been very strongly correlated with income and class; those with lower incomes and lower status — the very people who depend most on Social Security — have seen very small gains in life expectancy:

(More here.)