Health Care Reform: Safe Harbor for Determining Full-Time Employee Status. New guidance has been issued on two requirements under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the Act) that will become effective in 2014.
Early retirement benefits will continue to be available at age 62, but they will be reduced more. When the full-benefit age reaches 67, benefits taken at age 62 will be reduced to 70 percent of the full benefit and benefits first taken at age 65 will be reduced to 86.7 percent of the full benefit.
However, while the age workers expect to retire is growing, few retirees have been able to delay retirement past age 65. Just 17 percent of the retirees in the Gallup survey left the workforce after age 65. Currently, the average retirement age is 61, up from 57 in 1991. The most popular ages to retire are between 60 and 64 (36 percent). And 31 percent of seniors entered retirement before age 60.