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.
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Of course not. This is not some run-of-the-mill, “I’ve had a bad experience and hate them all,” thing. This is an, “Every single interaction I’ve had with several different people in this specific subgroup of regarding this topic over twenty-plus years has been wildly unhelpful and unnecessarily aggressive on their end, so I want them to see first-hand just how well their advice works out for them,” thing.
And believe it or not, my experience in this is not unique to me. In fact, amongst the group of people I’ve actually talked to about this, which is admittedly smaller than I’d like, every single person said their experience has been similar. So this is not an isolated one-in-a-million thing where I’ve met nothing but assholes.
EDIT: And I would like to bring up your rant accusing me of racism - because that’s what that was, whether you used the word or not. Please don’t go painting people with that brush based on imaginary characteristics you only think they have. There is a major problem with legitimate racism nowadays, throwing that accusation out there carelessly does nothing but make the work to end it harder. If anything, I am ageist, not racist.
While my boomer parents have obviously participated in the system and profited from it, they have never voted for a party that lead us down this path. Are they also to blame?
Ok so, meeting quite a few rude indians, over a time period is enough to write off like, a billion+ people?
The point is you aren’t capable of accounting anecdotal consensus for large populations, even if you think you’ve anecdotally met a lot of em
Bud what is your deal with trying to make it seem like people are racist against Indians specifically?
I’m not the other comment, I’m just extending the example.
It’s basic critical thinking to take one situation and compare it to another.
It could be any very large group, indians are a group of 1.4 billion and I found it applicable to extend the example. The point is anecdotal observation cannot ever form accurate assumption for a large group.
Same goes for boomers.