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Age-old question: Is 65 the right age?

Dear John: I have an idea to fix the fiscal cliff that is going to happen with the downfall of Medicare and Social Security.

When Social Security was enacted in 1935 under President Roosevelt and later Medicare in 1966 under President Johnson, the average life expectancy for Americans was 59. So if you reached the age of 65 you were one of the lucky ones.

Most people died about five years after they became 65 and only a few became older than 80. The whole enrollment and budget was based on that formula: that not many would even reach the age for the benefit and if you did, only a few, less than 10 percent, would [still be alive] after five years of receiving the benefits.

Now the average life expectancy is about 77 years old. If we use the same formula, the retirement age should be almost 20 years later than [it was] in 1935. This would totally solve the Social Security and Medicare budget dilemma.

But of course, nobody wants to talk about this. N.K.

Dear N.K.: You are correct on most of this. But you are wrong in thinking that nobody is talking about pushing back the age at which people are able to collect Social Security.

And if it were that easy, this would be solved already.

Let’s say that people are forced to work until they are 77 years old. That means they will be occupying jobs for a dozen extra years. And that means that someone trying to enter the work force will be competing with people who have to stay in the work force for that many more years.

And just because people live longer doesn’t mean they can work longer. Medical science may be keeping people alive more years, but that doesn’t mean they are fit enough to be employed.

In addition, there is a contract between our government and people in the Social Security system. Anyone currently working and contributing to the Social Security system has been promised that he or she will be able to retire at a certain age — 62, 65 or whatever.

If you change the rules now, you are breaking a contract with those people.

And changing the retirement age only for people entering the work force today — at, say, 21 years old — means that nothing will be accomplished in changing the retirement age for another half-century.

There are no simple solutions to this problem.

Send your questions to Dear John, The NY Post, 1211 Ave. of the Americas, NY, NY 10036, or john.crudele@nypost.com.