A Fox Business Network guest today attempted to spin a new poll which found that 23 percent of Americans expect to never retire by criticizing retirement and praising the U.S. for allowing its citizens the "opportunity to keep working."
During a segment on Making Money with Charles Payne Monday, the host discussed the findings of the poll from the Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
"With retirement inching closer to becoming a thing of the past for a lot of Americans, in fact a recent poll finds that nearly one in four people don't expect to ever leave the workforce. This, as a number of people working multiple jobs also spiking. So why are so many people financially unfit to call it quits?"
"Let's ask Trend Macrolytics CIO Donald Luskin," Payne continued, introducing the guest onto the show. "These kinds of polls are always around. Bank rate does some things, other folks. It is always alarming, 32 percent say they will retire before age 65, which might be unrealistic but 23 percent say never. Is that worrisome for you, Donald?"
"Doesn't worry me personally," Luskin responded. "I guess I'm one of those people who plans never to retire."
The 65-year-old Chief Investment Officer appear to then criticize the notion of retirement, before enthusiastically praising America for allowing its citizens to work until they die.
"I mean, I got to tell you, what do people do when they retire? You know, how do you spend a day? I mean, is bowling that interesting? Is fishing that interesting? I happen to love my work," Luskin said. "Why do I want to stop it? It's not like it hurts. Why would I stop it? This is great!"
"What a great country where we have the opportunity to keep working! What a miracle where our lives are long enough and we're healthy enough and mentally alert enough so that we don't have to retire like generations before us!" he added. "This is a great blessing. You should embrace it!"
When Payne asked his guest to comment on the people who weren't earning sufficient enough salaries to retire, Luskin responded by suggesting those people spent their youth "messing around" and contributing very little to their 401(k)s.
According to the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, 23 of workers surveyed say they never expect to leave the workforce, while another roughly quarter of people indicated they will work past 65 years old. However, government data from June shows that only approximately 20 percent of seniors aged 65 and older are working or seeking employment.
Experts explained that the disconnect between these figures is caused by illness, injury and layoffs forcing older workers to leave the employer sooner than planned.
"The average retirement age that we see in the data has gone up a little bit, but it hasn't gone up that much," Anqi Chen, assistant director of savings research at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, told the Associated Press. "So people have to live in retirement much longer, and they may not have enough assets to support themselves in retirement."
