me_irl

Climate change, advanced medical technology + health insurance incentives, political unviability/unsustainability of the federal government (in the US), and automation/AI will make retirement fundamentally different by then.

People in the rural areas or red states will basically be living in third world countries and will almost certainly be left behind as they demographically decay and become even more rabidly rightwing. They will continue to have outside influence on the federal government due to the mechanics of our electoral system, hollowing it out to the point of absurdity (even beyond what they've already done). However, because of the general incompetence stemming from this, the federal government itself will increasingly lose leverage over the economic powerhouse blue states. Workers who are still in rural areas or red states will basically become serfs and never afford to be able to escape to more functional areas of the country once this transition is complete. When climate related famines start happening, they will die off at the highest rates, but because of automation it will be unlikely to meaningfully disrupt the economy.

People will be forced to mass migrate away from the most dangerous climate areas and because the federal government is basically locked systematically into being eternally dysfunctional now, state level balkanization is inevitable. Likely resulting in Seattle, New York City, & most significantly Chicago becoming major city-states within a barely functioning federal system that they can largely just ignore outside the military and currency, using their massive economic leverage to negotiate their own sovereignty as well as influence surrounding more right-wing poor states laws with their own internal trade regulations.

Except California and other south western blue/purple states, whose fate is questionable due to climate change.

Automation and AI will fundamentally alter the job economy. White collar work will continue to exist but will pay barely any better than a basic service job and AI use will be mandatory/expected. Service jobs will exist but only in luxury spaces where people pay for human interaction in their dining and shopping experiences. Factory, farming, transport, will all become heavily automated and virtually cease to exist as jobs sectors. Leaving largely repair/mechanic/plumbing/hvac & construction (though even these job sectors will shrink with automation) as some of the only options left. Technology, Healthcare, and Legal services will continue to exist as high paying career paths for the lucky few but all the entry and mid-level stuff will get shrunk to basically nothing.

One of the few silver linings in terms of retirement itself & getting old: For people living in the more functional parts of the US (mainly in major cities in climate refuge zones) Government incentives to avoid having to pay out retirement when intersecting with currently rapidly advancing geroscience & birthrate decline will likely mandate anti-aging treatments. Most people will legitimately significantly live longer and healthier as aging's impacts are significantly mitigated and even partially reversed but they will likely be trading this for retirement and will be probably expected to work until death. And a huge chunk of their income will go straight to health insurance companies who are also incentivized to mandate anti-aging treatments to even qualify for health insurance as anti-aging treatments will probably be cheaper and more profitable than treating the pathology of aging (cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc) which tends to lose them money. Make no mistake, everyone here is evil, they are just are the pragmatic kind of evil who'd rather exploit your labor indefinitely than have to spend a bunch of money paying to keep a patient alive who will never work again. But this will result in people living decades longer at least and in relatively good health... you'll just never stop working. Ever.

We will basically live in a strange mostly-dystopic lightly-utopic US that is likely very alien to the one we currently live in.