Posted on 07/28/2013 8:43:59 PM PDT by SatinDoll
Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog,
If you want to frighten Baby Boomers, just show them the list of statistics in this article. The United States is headed for a retirement crisis of unprecedented magnitude, and we are woefully unprepared for it. At this point, more than 10,000 Baby Boomers are reaching the age of 65 every single day, and this will continue to happen for almost the next 20 years. The number of senior citizens in America is projected to more than double during the first half of this century, and some absolutely enormous financial promises have been made to them.
So will we be able to keep those promises to the hordes of American workers that are rapidly approaching retirement? Of course not. State and local governments are facing trillions in unfunded pension liabilities. Medicare is facing a 38 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years. The Social Security system is facing a 134 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years. Meanwhile, nearly half of all American workers have less than $10,000 saved for retirement.
The truth is that I was being incredibly kind when I said earlier that we are "woefully unprepared" for what is coming. The biggest retirement crisis in history is rapidly approaching, and a lot of the promises that were made to the Baby Boomers are going to get broken.
The following are 35 incredibly shocking statistics that will scare just about any Baby Boomer...
1. Right now, there are somewhere around 40 million senior citizens in the United States. By 2050 that number is projected to skyrocket to 89 million.
2. According to one recent poll, 25 percent of all Americans in the 46 to 64-year-old age bracket have no retirement savings at all.
3. 26 percent of all Americans in the 46 to 64-year-old age bracket have no personal savings whatsoever.
4. One survey that covered all American workers found that 46 percent of them have less than $10,000 saved for retirement.
5. According to a survey conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, "60 percent of American workers said the total value of their savings and investments is less than $25,000".
6. A Pew Research survey found that half of all Baby Boomers say that their household financial situations have deteriorated over the past year.
7. 67 percent of all American workers believe that they "are a little or a lot behind schedule on saving for retirement".
8. Today, one out of every six elderly Americans lives below the federal poverty line.
9. More elderly Americans than ever are finding that they must continue working once they reach their retirement years. Between 1985 and 2010, the percentage of Americans in the 65 to 69-year-old age bracket that were still working increased from 18 percent to 32 percent.
10. Back in 1991, half of all American workers planned to retire before they reached the age of 65. Today, that number has declined to 23 percent.
11. According to one recent survey, 70 percent of all American workers expect to continue working once they are "retired".
12. According to a poll conducted by AARP, 40 percent of all Baby Boomers plan to work "until they drop".
13. A poll conducted by CESI Debt Solutions found that 56 percent of American retirees still had outstanding debts when they retired.
14. Elderly Americans tend to carry much higher balances on their credit cards than younger Americans do. The following is from a recent CNBC article...
New research from the AARP also shows that those ages 50 and over are carrying higher balances on their credit cards -- $8,278 in 2012 compared to $6,258 for the under-50 population.
15. A study by a law professor at the University of Michigan found that Americans that are 55 years of age or older now account for 20 percent of all bankruptcies in the United States. Back in 2001, they only accounted for 12 percent of all bankruptcies.
16. Between 1991 and 2007 the number of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 that filed for bankruptcy rose by a staggering 178 percent.
17. What is causing most of these bankruptcies among the elderly? The number one cause is medical bills. According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the United States. Of those bankruptcies that were caused by medical bills, approximately 75 percent of them involved individuals that actually did have health insurance.
18. In 1945, there were 42 workers for every retiree receiving Social Security benefits. Today, that number has fallen to 2.5 workers, and if you eliminate all government workers, that leaves only 1.6 private sector workers for every retiree receiving Social Security benefits.
19. Millions of elderly Americans these days are finding it very difficult to survive on just a Social Security check. The truth is that most Social Security checks simply are not that large. The following comes directly from the Social Security Administration website...
The average monthly Social Security benefit for a retired worker was about $1,230 at the beginning of 2012. This amount changes monthly based upon the total amount of all benefits paid and the total number of people receiving benefits.
Could you live on about 300 dollars a week?
20. Social Security benefits are not going to stretch as far in future years. The following is from an article on the AARP website...
Social Security benefits won't go as far, either. In 2002, benefits replaced 39 percent of the average retirees salary, and that will decline to 28 percent in 2030, when the youngest boomers reach full retirement age, according to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
21. In the United States today, more than 61 million Americans receive some form of Social Security benefits. By 2035, that number is projected to soar to a whopping 91 million.
22. Overall, the Social Security system is facing a 134 trillion dollar shortfall over the next 75 years.
23. As I wrote about in a previous article, the number of Americans on Medicare is expected to grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 73.2 million in 2025.
24. Medicare is facing unfunded liabilities of more than 38 trillion dollars over the next 75 years. That comes to approximately $328,404 for each and every household in the United States.
25. Today, only 10 percent of private companies in the U.S. provide guaranteed lifelong pensions for their employees.
26. Verizon's pension plan is underfunded by 3.4 billion dollars.
27. In California, the Orange County Employees Retirement System is estimated to have a 10 billion dollar unfunded pension liability.
28. The state of Illinois has accumulated unfunded pension liabilities of more than 77 billion dollars.
29. Pension consultant Girard Miller told California's Little Hoover Commission that state and local government bodies in the state of California have 325 billion dollars in combined unfunded pension liabilities.
30. According to Northwestern University Professor John Rauh, the latest estimate of the total amount of unfunded pension and healthcare obligations for retirees that state and local governments across the United States have accumulated is 4.4 trillion dollars.
31. In 2010, 28 percent of all American workers with a 401(k) had taken money out of it at some point.
32. Back in 2004, American workers were taking about 30 billion dollars in early withdrawals out of their 401(k) accounts every single year. Right now, American workers are pulling about 70 billion dollars in early withdrawals out of their 401(k) accounts every single year.
33. Today, 49 percent of all American workers are not covered by an employment-based pension plan at all.
34. According to a recent survey conducted by Americans for Secure Retirement, 88 percent of all Americans are worried about "maintaining a comfortable standard of living in retirement".
35. A study conducted by Boston College's Center for Retirement Research found that American workers are $6.6 trillion short of what they need to retire comfortably.
So what is the solution? Well, one influential organization of business executives says that the solution is to make Americans wait longer for retirement. The following is from a recent CBS News article...
An influential group of business CEOs is pushing a plan to gradually increase the full retirement age to 70 for both Social Security and Medicare and to partially privatize the health insurance program for older Americans.
The Business Roundtable's plan would protect those 55 and older from cuts but younger workers would face significant changes. The plan unveiled Wednesday would result in smaller annual benefit increases for all Social Security recipients. Initial benefits for wealthy retirees would also be smaller.
But considering the fact that there aren't nearly enough jobs for all Americans already, perhaps that is not such a great idea. If we expect Americans to work longer, then we are going to need our economy to start producing a lot more good jobs than it is producing right now.
Of course the status quo is not going to work either. There is no way that we are going to be able to meet the financial obligations that are coming due.
The federal government, our state governments and our local governments are already drowning in debt and we are already spending far more money than we bring in each year. How in the world are we going to make ends meet as our obligations to retirees absolutely skyrocket in the years ahead?
What is going on in Detroit right now is a perfect example of what will soon be happening all over the nation. Many city workers stuck with their jobs for decades because of the promise of a nice pension at the end of the rainbow. But now those promises are going up in smoke. There has even been talk that retirees will only end up getting about 10 cents for every dollar that they were promised.
Good for you. We must all count our blessings.
The problem is that social security was supposed to function like an annuity. It wasn’t a handout and wasn’t meant as welfare. It was supposed to function like an investment that you paid into. Unfortunately, Congress spent the money that was to have sustained the coffers of the annuity, and now we’re going bankrupt.
It’s a bit like investing in Enron or another rotten corporation, only there’s no choice, no diversifying of investments, and no real oversight over the federal government.
“1. Right now, there are somewhere around 40 million senior citizens in the United States. By 2050 that number is projected to skyrocket to 89 million.”
By 2050 most Boomers will be dead as most of their parents are now. A rather constant theme among Boomers in my experience is complete lack of concern about what they leave behind after they die.
Huh? By 2050 most of us boomers will be dead and gone. My baby sister who was born in 1963 will be 87.
My eldest daughter (a Gen-Xer) will be 70 in that year. Seems my grand kids will be the ones most concerned with the elderly at mid century.
That's how it's been sold to us over the decades but the fact is that it's never been structured like an annuity. From the beginning, Peter payed for Paul's retirement.
I turned 60 last month. Thank God I started my own business seventeen years ago. I've never had to wonder where I'm going to work since then, and I'll probably be at it at least another ten years.
I think my kids will probably fire me by that time ;-)
Didn’t mean to imply you were.
Just describing my situation. The whole system is based on thievery and ignorance, but it’s here until it implodes.
My condolences for the loss of your Mother.
Isn't three score and ten the cutoff, after which your check doesn't increase?
If you're feeling healthy, delay until 70. If not, sign up early — 66 and whatever if you're doing well, 62 otherwise.
There won’t be near as many senior citizens as they project. obama care will allow a lot of us to die.
“...It’s a bit like investing in Enron or another rotten corporation,..”
OMG!
I worked for Portland General Company, bought by Enron. They changed out all the stocks in our employee 401Ks to Enron stock. When Enron went bankrupt, employees lost their pensions. One poor soul lost over a millions dollars just before he was due to retire.
Your comments took my breath away.
Absolutely. Every dollar that is payed in today, goes right back out to pay for current retirees benefits. Everything that current retirees paid in the past went out right back out to cover the cost of their parents' benefits. Any extra money received by SSI was spent immediately on that years general Federal budget.
A wise person won't count on SSI being available in 20 years and any savings people manage to acquire is in danger of being inflated away. An independent retirement as an old age lifestyle is going the way of the dodo bird. I guess the moral is be nice to your kids.
What about those of us who contributed maximum....double hit actually.....as employers for 40 plus years
My dad contributed over half million in his life....not counting any return....he died at 64 and got not shite
Y
My mom got 20,000 a year for 9 years and died.....25% of his principal only
I sold a business a few years back and paid back FICA in a dispute settling of 125,000 and am on track to put in even more than dad did as a business owner
I won’t get back but a pittance what I contributed to all my life
A lot of crybabies here whine about older folks....like girls
I have 9 dependents.....taxes and the stagnant economy are brutal
And yet if I get back just some of the at least 500,000 I’ve contributed to FICA just in principal
And I’m a bad guy....a spoiled brat
Well EFF the hipster sissy generation and the Prius they rode in on with their wife driving.....they got a lot of gall
Yeah, I know wardaddy. It sucks. But that’s the nature of all Ponzi schemes.
In a few years, I will turn 62. At that time, I will file for SS and leave the US for the Philippines where my dollar will go a lot farther.
Hopefully, SS will still be solvent.
I am kind of in the opposite boat. I lived in Hong Kong for many years and did not work for a US company so I have paid almost nothing into the Social Security system. I am now exempt because I work for the government of Guam. I don’t know if I even qualify for it should I retire. But I don’t want to back to the US and put money into the system. If I do qualify I will not take it. We don’t need the money
There's a perfectly good explanation for this. The government will be confiscating all those funds soon to plug any revenue gaps that are caused by Obama's economic policies. Gone! in the blink of an eye and nothing but a pittance added to your SS to compensate you afterwards. [As for your decision to make, look at it this way. If you take the money at 62 you'll get about 3/4 of what you'd get at 66. You'll get 4 years of 3/4 payments. So then the question is how long does it take for full payments to catch up to 3/4 payments that started 4 years earlier. In my case IIRC it was about 12 years of 66-level payments - I'd be 78 when it was a lose situation for retiring at 62.]
By 2050 most Boomers will be dead as most of their parents are now.
A good majority of Gen X’ers will be dead too. I mean I will be 81 in 2050 and I was born in 1969. The oldest Gen X’er will be 85 in 2050. Although heath of people are getting better, the majority of the population do not make it to 85 or 81.
Aside from their votes for democrats, the soon to be legal illegals will be paying into the SS and Medicare programs working their lawful jobs. The US needs to kick the can further down the road before collapse so those working the handles of power won’t be blamed. This is necessary because through government policies, the US has aborted over 50 million American citizens. We need to get the bodies from somewhere.
“The average monthly Social Security benefit for a retired worker was about $1,230 at the beginning of 2012”
More than I’ve ever made. Yeah, life is so tough for boomers.
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