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.
I don’t think it’s correct to assume that the labour market will move into old age care just because more workers will be needed. Personally, there’s no amount of money that you could offer me to get me into that line of work.
As I understand it, there’s already a shortage of workers in that field. Increasing demand might draw more as the money (theoretically) increases, but being short staffed adds even more difficulty to the work, so burnout might be high enough to counteract that.
In short, I think a lot of boomers will suffer as they need care, and it’s possible it’ll also affect younger generations.
What about when it’s your parents that need taking care of, and no one else is available to help?
I guess it’s one area where I’m lucky neither of my parents are still around because I’ll never have to make that decision because I have no idea what I would have done if I did need to make it.
Though I do know from the other side of that that I don’t want to be a burden on my daughter when I get to that point. Maybe I’ll be lucky and things will be figured out since the population spread will look different, but then again, I don’t know if I’d consider any kind of life like that lucky. Both of my parents chose to decline medical care when it got to the point where they’d need it regularly to survive; I might do the same.
That’s a tough choice to make, but nothing wrong with yours