Mandatory retirement.

Mandatory Retirement 

WITHOUT MUCH opposition, a bill outlawing mandatory retirement passed Congress in its closing days and was duly signed by the President. Nevertheless, it is in principle a bad bill.

To be sure, it is not absolutist: Police departments, fire departments, and universities are exempt from its provisions for seven years, during which time their particular situations will be studied. Nor does the bill seem likely to have much practical effect. According to the GAO, the median retirement age for workers in 1985--seven years after the allowable mandatory retirement age was raised from 65 to seventy--was 62. A 1982 Labor Department study estimated that abolishing mandatory retirement altogether would add a minuscule 200,000 workers to the labor force by the year 2000.

But, in principle, the new law is an unwarranted federal interference with private contracts. A professor who was obliged by contract to retire at 65, but who was in full possession of his mental faculties, could, even with "mandatory' retirement, negotiate further employment with his present university or another one. The cutoff--some cutoff, wherever placed--meant that individuals in decline could be routinely eased out without embarrassment. Congress seems merely to have been currying favor with an aging population, and it deserves to hear in stern terms from younger voters.