The great baby-boomer retirement wave is upon us. According to Census Bureau data, 44% of boomers are at retirement age and millions more are soon to join them. By 2030, the largest generation to enter retirement will all be older than 65.
The general assumption is that boomers will have a comfortable retirement. Coasting on their accumulated wealth from three decades as America's dominant economic force, boomers will sail off into their golden years to sip on margaritas on cruises and luxuriate in their well-appointed homes. After all, Federal Reserve data shows that while the 56 million Americans over 65 make up just 17% of the population, they hold more than half of America's wealth — $96.4 trillion.
But there's a flaw in the narrative of a sunny boomer retirement: A lot of older Americans are not set up for their later years. Yes, many members of the generation are loaded, but many more are not. Like every age cohort, there's significant wealth inequality among retirees — and it's gotten worse in the past decade. Despite holding more than half of the nation's wealth, many boomers don't have enough money to cover the costs of long-term care, and 43% of 55- to 64-year-olds had no retirement savings at all in 2022. That year, 30% of people over 65 were economically insecure, meaning they made less than $27,180 for a single person. And since younger boomers are less financially prepared for retirement than their older boomer siblings, the problem is bound to get worse.
As boomers continue to age out of the workforce, it's going to put strain on the healthcare system, government programs, and the economy. That means more young people are going to be financially responsible for their parents, more government spending will be allocated to older folks, and economic growth could slow.
Look, there was a generation between Boomers and Gen X and the fact that they're now just lumped in together is ridiculous. They're called Boomers because they were born during the baby boom immediately following WWII. That boom did not last 20 years. Actual Boomers have been retired for a decade.
Gen X, always forgotten. Fuckin latchkey kids to the end.
I think a lot of us grew to prefer it that way.
There's a lot to be said for being able to blend into a crowd and be forgotten. You sure can get away with a lot more, anyway.
This comment has given me far more food for thought than the first skim.
Yes, you're correct. There is more.
Being content with being part of the crowd and being comfortable with your own identity in a way that you don't need externalise it, because ultimately the validation that you receive can only come from you, because it won't come from anywhere else. Someone else will claim the credit anyway.
Being comfortable not being noticed.
Just getting on with it. Work, life, pleasure, marriage, parenthood, careers, it's probably not going to get any better, it's probably going to be blamed on you anyway, just get on with it and hope no-one asks too many questions.
Find a nice quiet spot out of the wind for a snooze, knock off work at 4pm, quiet life with no surprises etc.
No alarms and no surprises, please.
Someone born in 1950 was only 64 10 years ago. There are plenty of older boomers that have been waiting to retire into their 70s.
Elevated birth rates lasted at the very least until the late 1950s. It was more than just a few years.
So what? They should've been retired for a decade. Sticking around in the workforce is tantamount to theft of wealth and opportunity from the generation coming up behind them.
The "late 1950s" boomers are literally the only ones who have any excuse to not be retired yet.
You don't need an excuse to not be retired. Plenty of people just don't have the means to retire so are still working. Or plenty of boomers are housing or at least helping their millennial kids with bills and therefore don't retire. Why should a 69 year old who is still totally active leave their job, which puts their mental and physical health at risk all while moving to a smaller, fixed income at a time of crazy price increases just to make room for other people to make more? They're getting screwed by grocery prices and insurance spikes too
Because their job is as an executive and they just play with their own buttholes all day.
If some executive retired, do you really think you’d just step into their shoes? That is not opening a job for a millennial.
Before anyone says that will let everyone shuffle up a bit, letting each level improve, I also wanted to point out the number of executives is very small, relative to the entire cohort. Even if they all stepped aside, that’s just not opening many spaces
Exactly. My generation needs our shot at fucking things up first!
Of course I wouldn't. I'm totally understand qualified and uninterested. But I'm telling you most of the corporations around here are run by old guys going on "business trips" in mexico who got their job through their golf buddy. And they don't do much aside from wander around chatting all day, collecting a salary equal to 4 of the people actually producing value.
Did you really just say that the boomers are stealing our jobs? Lmao
The last boomers haven't. The youngest ones will be 60 this year. There are still tons of them in the workforce.
No, that's what I'm saying. Those turning 60 this year are not Boomers. They are the generation that came between Boomers and GenX. Yeah, even this Wikipedia article lumps them in with Boomers, but they weren't considered Boomers as they were coming of age: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Jones They shouldn't be now, either. Ask any of them if they consider themselves Boomers.
Will be 60 January 18th. NOT a boomer!
Started working when I was 14.
I'm 62 and had my first job at 12.
Mom disowned me and dad left everything to his 5th wife. No wealth dribbled down my way.
You two are accused above of hording wealth.
Why didn't you retire yet?
Was it waiting for social security? Waiting for Medicare? Paying basic bills?
People don't seem to know your life, but are making a lot of assumptions.
What gen are you in then?
Gen X
I’m not sure it changes this conversation to argue about that. The usual demographic description of Boomers is those born up to 1964. If we define the Jones cohort, this just splits that in half, and that article gave an ending date 1965. I’m not sure how it matters to this conversation.
My older brother was born in 1965 and would be pissed off if anyone called him a boomer. We should do that
I was born in 1962 and I consider myself a Boomer. I have a friend born in 1961 who considers himself GenX. It's life circumstances and attitude that determine where you fit.
Also, everybody please remember all these generational labels are made-up bullshit and vast generalizations that might be useful for some meta-analysis of trends, but they're less than useless when it comes to understanding individual behavior.
Like I taught my kids, the minute you start thinking all people in "Group Whatever" are alike, you lose.
Ironically I think they are referred to as the silent generation. I’m genx my parents are boomers and older brother is silent generation. I think.
Silent generation precedes the boomers.
Ah sorry, thanks for the correction.
While generally right here.
they have not been retired for nearly a decade. THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN. but they've been holding on. How many companies have fossils still leading them?
as someone in my 40's, just before millenials. We were lost because there's simply no way up the ladder to places the boomers refused to vacate. doesn't matter how educated, experienced many of us were, There was a ceiling. We were told "hold your turn. boomers will retire soon"... they're in their 70's and 80's now. My parents included (Thankfully with us). But they're all STILL TRYING TO WORK!
My parents at least DID retire Mostly. MY dad still does some work because to the boomers, work was living. they really knew nothing else.
problem is now the combination of Covid and age, and many of them legit dying while still working, we've got a clusterfuck of an economic problem (here in Canada, we're already experiencing this wave). Immigration, Local resources, and infrastructure is just simply not setup for the mass wave of retirees going straight into either homes, or the ground. We can't import people fast enough to fill all the jobs, and the faster we import them, we can't build homes fast enough to keep the housing in check.
have to get ahead of this 10 years ago sadly. We're too late and we'll all be playing reactionary for the next 20 years in regards to the shifting demographcs.
The boomers started retiring 20 years ago. What they're doing now is dying.