“Unlocking the Secrets to a 6-Year Work Retirement: Could This Be the Game-Changer You’ve Been Looking For?”
Is there an unwritten rule somewhere that says we must grind away our best years at work, only to retire when we can barely remember what we once enjoyed? Well, hold onto your coffee mugs, folks! In a delightful twist to the traditional work-life narrative, a recent report from the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment has bravely declared that it’s downright absurd for folks to toil away for decades on end. They advocate that after just six years of full-time work, you should have the privilege to hang up your boots and sip margaritas on a beach! Co-author Sarah Middleton argues that while it’s necessary to work—as much as many of us might begrudge that fact—anything beyond six years just feels like cruel and unusual punishment. And who doesn’t love the idea of retiring in their prime, rather than when their joints start sending out SOS signals? So, let’s dive into this cheeky revelation and explore what life could look like if we took a little European inspiration and eased up on the work treadmill! LEARN MORE.
LOS ANGELES—Calling the findings of its comprehensive survey of American workplace practices “total bullshit,” the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment issued a report Monday concluding that you should be able to retire after, like, six years of working full time. “We evaluated the data around current U.S. employment rates, and our research shows that it’s basically crazy that we have to waste our whole damn lives working before we can retire,” said report co-author Sarah Middleton, who explained that six years is actually a really long time and that it sounds like more than enough labor for one person. “Our research found that people have to work and stuff or else nothing would get done, but anything more than half a decade or so seems cruel and excessive. That has to be hundreds of hours of work, right? And after consulting with experts across the field, we determined that six years was a totally reasonable amount of time to pay your dues before you get to kick back and chill. After that long, people are so broken down they barely contribute much anyway, so this seems like a good compromise. Maybe if you’re part-time you work 10 years or something. I mean, when are people supposed to do things that they like? We heard that’s how they do it in Europe already anyway.” Middleton confirmed that the findings were based on a full-time workweek of five-hour days, four days per week.
