Comment by lenerdenator

> Since when does retirement mean living off money you didn't labor for? The whole point is the opposite - you can only retire if you have enough resources/income (pension, 401K, gold bars, etc) that you can support yourself without working.

Since inflation was a thing, so since ever.

If you take the money you labored for and put it in an account without accruing any sort of interest, you will have exactly what you earned to live off of without working.

Since that happens over a span of decades - let's say forty years - that needs to account for the reduction in value brought about by inflation. You offset that using interest generated by loans issued by the institution that operates the account (which is not you laboring) or by returns from owning equities (which is the output of other people's labor).

I suppose the gold bars you mention could rise in value enough to offset inflation without resorting to taking a slice of someone else's economic output, but that's not how most retirement accounts are backed.

> In the US we have a problem that a lot of seniors can't afford to retire.

We also have the problem that a lot of people at the beginning and middle of their lives don't have the standard of living that their parents had despite doing all of the "right" things.