BIS Review 27/2005  7  Table 3 U.S. Workers in Physically Demanding Jobs Year  Percent in Demanding Jobs  1950  20.3  1960  13.8  1970  11.1  1980  9.1  1990  7.8  1996  7.5  Source: Eugene Steuerle, Christopher Spiro, and Richard W. Johnson (1999), Straight Talk on Social Security and Retirement Policy, The Urban Institute, August 15.
Budget savings Let's then take a policy change that raises the retirement age three months every two years, or 1.25 years every decade, and taxes all wages for both Social Security and Medicare. How does it stack up? The tax change is easy to compute.