Larry Fink, the billionaire CEO of the world's largest asset management firm, wrote in his annual letter to investors on Tuesday that it is "a bit crazy" that 65 is viewed as a sensible retirement age in the United States, drawing swift backlash from Social Security defenders and policy analysts.

Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research, replied that the CEO of BlackRock apparently doesn't know the U.S. already raised the full retirement age for Social Security to 67 under a law passed during the Reagan administration—a change that inflicted benefit cuts across the board.

"I love how rich people are treated as sources of great wisdom when they obviously don't know their ass from their elbow," Baker wrote on social media.

While Fink, who is 71, wrote that "no one should have to work longer than they want to," he argued that "our conception of retirement must change," pointing specifically to the Netherlands decision to gradually raise its retirement age and tie it to life expectancy. (Fink does not mention that life expectancy in the U.S. has been trending downward in recent years.)

"When people are regularly living past 90, what should the average retirement age be?" Fink wrote. "How do we encourage more people who wish to work longer, with carrots rather than sticks?"

Alex Lawson, executive director of the progressive advocacy group Social Security Works, told Common Dreams in response to the BlackRock CEO's letter that "Larry Fink is the definition of an out-of-touch billionaire."

"He is welcome to work as long as he wants to, but that doesn't mean that everyone else—including people who do demanding physical labor—should work until they die," said Lawson.

Half of Americans age 65 and older are living on less than $30,000 per year. This is absurd. Congress must expand Social Security."

Roughly half of older Americans have no retirement savings, a fact that Fink acknowledged in his letter.

While progressive lawmakers such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have called on policymakers to expand Social Security benefits by forcing rich people like Fink to contribute more to the program, the BlackRock CEO argued that the private sector and federal government should team up to ensure that future generations can live out their final years with dignity."

"What should that national effort do? I don't have all the answers," Fink added. "But what I do have is some data and the beginnings of a few ideas from BlackRock’s work. Because our core business is retirement."

Fink's letter comes days after the Republican Study Committee—a panel comprised of around 80% of the House GOP caucus—released a budget proposal calling for "modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy" in a purported bid to "secure Social Security solvency for decades to come."

But progressives argue that rather than slashing benefits for new retirees to shore up the program, Congress should lift the payroll tax cap that allows the ultra-rich to pay the same amount into Social Security as someone who makes $168,600 a year.

Fink, for example, has a base salary of around $1.5 million. With the current payroll tax cap in place, Fink stopped paying into Social Security less than a month and a half into 2024.

"In the U.S. today, 12 million seniors are dealing with food insecurity," Sanders wrote on social media Tuesday. "Half of Americans age 65 and older are living on less than $30,000 per year. This is absurd. Congress must expand Social Security."

Republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).