Posted on 11/10/2011 4:21:38 AM PST by Publius804
Will Baby Boomers be the last generation to enjoy the modern concept of a leisure-filled retirement? It's a worthy question to ponder in light of a new Pew Research Center report showing a growing wealth gap between young and old in the United States.
Using government data over the last 25 years, Pew found that households headed by those over 65 have made "dramatic gains" in economic well-being, while those headed by younger adults have fallen steadily behind.
In 2009, elderly households possessed 42 percent more median net worth than their same-age counterparts had in 1984. Young adults veered in the opposite direction: Households headed by those under the age of 35 had 68 percent less wealth in 2009 than those in their same age range had in 1984.
Put simply, the age-based wealth gap was 10:1 in 1984. A quarter-century later, it's 47:1.
It's obvious why older Americans typically have a higher net worth -- extra years of earning -- but the rising gap illustrates a growing problem, one worsened by the Great Recession: Many Americans in their golden years are enjoying a retirement that, most likely, will be extinct by the time today's younger workers reach their 60s.
That reality is setting the stage for a generational war over retirement, and a large part of the equation is Social Security. The political fault lines on the issue already are real.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Ping!
I’d say the preceding generation was the last one to enjoy a leisured retirement.
Baby boomers are just beginning to retire now, and many of them have also lost a great deal of their retirement money and probably wouldn’t have had the comfy retirements anyway. But I suspect that the pressure is going to be on them to simply go the next step and die. They’re going to be told that they’re too expensive and just clogging up the works and hogging that money and airspace that should be passed along (to the government).
Having any retirement at all might be iffy for the Boomers.
Keep on toiling you youngsters, I’m enjoying my life of Riley and if you’re too young to know what that means, Google it.
Is there anything worse than an old man being provocative this early in the morning?
I have heard this more and more from the young ‘uns in my work places (I am a contractor- I go from place to place)
There is a LOT of complaining that the geezers voted themselves our paychecks 20,30, and 40 years ago.
All the current talk about spending your future grandchildren’s money is starting to reming people that they are the grandchildren of people who did this to us
Anyone who has been in office more than 20 years should be thrown out on their ass (or into jail) for what they did to this country over the last 20 years. Not re-elected.
My CD rolled over last week
The bank gave me .10 for an interest rate.
Anybody got enough money to retire on.10?
Might as well keep your money under the mattress.
People don’t seem to realize that if you are retired and have a pension you DO spend a LOT of $$$ which in turn helps out the economy .The pension, Social Security, and 401 money retired boomers spend ( and there are a lot of boomers) is a driving force in the economy.
“There is a LOT of complaining that the geezers voted themselves our paychecks 20,30, and 40 years ago.”
That would be my diehard democrat parents 78 and 80+ respectively. They loooove their social security. They blame everything on the GOP and could care less if the system is broke. Meanwhile, me and my young Boomer husband contribute to the black hole of SS/Med weekly and have been since we were 15.
could care = couldn’t care
Yep. Intelligent youngsters will look for businesses which do the jobs aging folks are either no longer capable of or which they no longer desire to do for themselves, and thus get a slice of that pie.
The rest just want it handed to them...
People don’t seem to realize that if you are retired and have a pension you DO spend a LOT of $$$ which in turn helps out the economy .The pension, Social Security, and 401 money retired boomers spend ( and there are a lot of boomers) is a driving force in the economy.
Now imagine if the "Fair Tax" was imposed, chopping their spending power by a quarter - provided that they stay in the US. Simply moving to another country would restore their spending power, and remove them from a growing demographic that hates their guts for having money and living off of them via pension and the soon to be dead Social Security.
How much of the change is due to so many youths spending like there is no tomorrow, and racking up student loan debt that no one would have ever considered 20 years ago? Kids who want to live in a house NOW (I first bought at 35), or want a nice car NOW (I’ve been known to use a motorcycle thru a north Utah winter). Or because they are King of the World in War Something 12, and don’t want to stoop to daily work?
I'll speak for my parents, who are in their 80's and enjoying a modest lifestyle.
They didn't buy a house with virtually no money down as soon as they were married. They rented for a while, saved up a decent down payment, then bought a modest house (about $11K in 1960), reared three children there, and lived there until retirement.
When I was a child, my mother sewed all our clothes, we ate out maybe once a year.
We took packed lunches to school because it was too expensive to buy the school lunch (which cost 25¢ at the time). Our dinner treat of the week was the Sunday pot roast.
Our vacations consisted entirely of traveling to see relatives. No trips to Disney, or HI, or condos at the beach.
We bought used cars and drove them until they literally fell apart. We were the last on the block to have a B/W TV and the last to have a color TV. In fact, we were always the last to have any kind of newfangled technological gizmo.
If something needed fixing around the house, Dad did it.
We didn't have tennis lessons/art lessons/golf lessons/summer camps/etc.
Our activities were the ones offered for free in school, the community, and church.
Mom stayed at home, but when it was time for us to go to college, Mom took a job and that's how our college education was paid.
Compare that lifestyle to the lifestyle of any young adult you know.
Read my Post 15. It’s an amplification of what you wrote. We are on the same page.
ping!
I am a late baby boomer. I have already decided in my mind that many of the ‘benefits’ of a progressive society won't be there as promised. And I have anticipated, that even the retirement accounts of IRAs and 401K will be taken away in a last ditch effort of appeasement to the old and the young.
How shall we say it...the young are waking up to realize they are being fleeced and boomer's will find themselves looted in the progressive system.
I do not begrudge the elders of the now and yet...I do not support the idea that a promise is a promise. The morally correct thing is to find a way to end the system. Perhaps persons born after 1970 or 1965 are no longer eligible to receive benefits. Contributions will still need to be made, but it is the promise to stop this lunacy to the younger generation that is the reward. The program should realize a wind down and extinction in 20 years. I am willing to make that sacrifice to restore the 'dream of America,' to the generations behind me. I realize we cannot do both.
The price of college tuition, fees, and books has doubled in the past decade.
Thanks, Fedzilla.
Kids who want to live in a house NOW
I'd like to live in a house that I own some day, but real estate here in Northern Virginia is in the $500K+ range (and that's in the outer suburbs).
Of course, after living all twenty-six years of my life in the Federal deathtrap, I think in a few years I will be done with this place.
want a nice car NOW
I bought a used 2010 vehicle with 30K miles this year. Want to blame me? I was driving a 2001 vehicle with 240K miles previously, and although it still runs, it had become somewhat unreliable - and I really don't want to be stuck in a dead vehicle on the way to my full-time job or my part-time graduate classes in engineering.
Or because they are King of the World in War Something 12, and don’t want to stoop to daily work?
I haven't played video games or computer games in forever. Quite a few of my fellow Gen Y colleagues do; while they're gaming, I'm usually getting eaten alive by the Angry Birds of stochastic processes and queueing theory.
Anyone else want to attack the productive young'uns who are getting raped to pay for Socialist Insecurity and Medicare (Socialist healthcare for old people)?
The problem is that the "conservative base" prefers to cuddle with the Republican Party, and I know of few (if any) young'uns who trust the Republican Party, especially after the Party's behavior of the past decade.
Shucks, I myself don't trust the Republican Party after Bush and a Republican Congress went on a spending orgy!
even the retirement accounts of IRAs and 401K
Unlike many of my counterparts, I have begun saving. If Fedzilla openly confiscates what savings I have, I will strongly consider defaulting on debts I owe to Fedzilla (and am currently repaying) and possibly leaving the U.S. for good - after all, much of the developed world is aging and there is a dearth of STEM workers, which means that other countries with better-managed economies will begin (if they haven't done so already) to start poaching talent.
I do not support the idea that a promise is a promise.
In order for a promise to be a promise, it has to be voluntary. Otherwise, it's nothing more than extortion and stealing. And no, neither the unborn nor infants are capable of making promises.
Perhaps persons born after 1970 or 1965 are no longer eligible to receive benefits. Contributions will still need to be made, but it is the promise to stop this lunacy to the younger generation that is the reward.
"Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth."
When Social Security dies, it will be because the program - bloated and heavily in the red - collapses because the arrival of new victims slows to a crawl and the program finds itself unable to tax its current victims at a rate higher than 100 percent. Of course, Fedzilla could ramp up the printing presses, but that might trigger a hyperinflation and bring the entire system down.
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