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.
The problem with all of the people replying in this thread who think like you do is you apparently can't grasp that "boomer" is a generation and not a collective. It's not a political party or group that you join. It is a label that lands on you based on when you were born. You don't opt in to being a boomer. And yet you can't comprehend that what one boomer does has no relation to what another does. You see generational trends and think that, because a majority of boomers voted one way in any particular election they're all culpable for the consequences of conservative policies regardless of whether any individual actually voted that way.
Boomers were at Woodstock. Boomers were protesting the Vietnam war. Boomers fueled the women's liberation and civil rights movements. But you think they're all a bunch of conservatives who deserve to suffer from conservative policies.
A VERY tiny percentage of boomers went to woodstock. A very tiny percentage of boomer protested Vietnam. The majority just went to work and moved on with life. The media has long overrepresented just how engaged in these activities boomers really were and it really is no different than "avocado toast" or whatever nonsense is being spread around today.
Even just taking you at your word, it still means that you believe that "VERY tiny percentage" who did support civil rights and stood up against conservative warmongering deserve to suffer alongside the rest of their generation, because they were born at the wrong time.
The simple end of it is that you're just an ageist prick who has chosen your boogieman that you'll pin all of your problems on and can take pleasure in the suffering of.
This is the "you should feel bad for the people in Texas who didn't vote GOP" argument again. I can feel sad for those few souls while still thinking that Texas is ridiculous and focus my opinion towards the state as a whole being a shithole.
Really, though, it is unclear why you are so passionate on this subject except that perhaps you identify as part of that group and are taking it personally.
Not a boomer, sorry. I'm actually capable of feeling bad for the suffering of people that I don't identify with.
But you're right: Texas is a shit hole and yet we can feel bad for those who don't habitually vote for those who maintain it as a shit hole but have no ability to leave. So maybe you do understand nuance, so understand I was replying to someone telling boomers to "fuck themselves" in response to an article about how countless boomers are facing poverty as they retire. Those who are certainly weren't benefiting from a rigged system and pulling the ladder up from under them to make sure the rest of us are screwed too. And as I replied in another comment to you, only about half of boomers actually voted for Reagan, who is absolutely the president most responsible for the ultra-capitalist hell hole we're in today. So maybe extend some more of that empathy to other age groups that you give to geographic locations. Like I said, many of the boomers who will suffer have been screwed just as much as the rest of us, and a hell of a lot of them certainly didn't vote for it.
Lumping anyone together with the worst members of any arbitrary demographic they belong to, even if it was a (narrow) majority, is how irrational hatred persists.