The largest generation of baby boomer approaches the age of retirement and they are concerned about the Social Security retirement, which cause a financial challenge to the society. Baby boomers are the first generation and the majority of them is prepared to exit the workplace. From an economic perspective, baby boomers have financial stress that can have an influence on their ability to last the standard life of retirement, which is revealed through the following causes: they have insufficient retirement savings and they are burdened with unprecedented mortgage debt.
A Baby Boomer is someone who was born after the end of the Second World War between the years of 1946 to 1964 (History, 2016). In other words, it is a person who, in the postwar
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In more detail, much of their savings are tied up towards retirement due to the serious financial crisis of 2008, which means they lack of sufficient retirement funds, even basic living expenses. According to the research of Boomer Expectation for Retirement 2016, which is from the Insured Retirement Institute, illustrates that 25 % of boomers have no retirement savings and 76 percent of baby boomer generation are unconfident about whether their savings can last through retirement (Insured Retirement Institute, 2016). This appears to suggest that boomers might not be prepared for their retirement plan and that they have never tried to figure out how much they will need for retirement. Moreover, they are concerned about not being able to maintain their standard of living. For example, according to a newspaper report from Star Tribune, Judy Davis, 57, of St. Paul, who works for a nonprofit agency, discusses her difficulty of retirement, “If I had to retire I would be broke pretty soon. I could probably survive six months to a year” (Read, 2015). With this in mind, it proves that Davis still works for a nonprofit agency because she does not have any preparation for her retirement or enough money to last through her old age. Furthermore, the lack of retirement savings will reduce their standard of living. Therefore, baby boomers experience significant financial stress because of …show more content…
More specifically, boomers use a part of retirement income to pay for previous incurred debt instead of using it for their life of retirement. They also face a financial issue when they have no income in their age of retirement. According to the research of the Graying of American Debt Meta Brown, which is from Federal Reserve Bank of New York, indicates that the debt of Americans from the age of baby boomer has grown by 59% from 2003 to 2015 and per capita debt at age 65 has increased by 48% (Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 2016). This could possibly mean the old population enters retirement with mortgage debt and that the amount of their debt may continue to rise. For instance, according to a newspaper report from the Globe and Mail, Gordon Hines, 67, who is a retired math teacher, describes his willingness of looking for a new job, “I’m in more debt that I’ve ever been in, and I’m worried about it.” (McFarland, 2015). This reveals that Hines is looking for a job to cover the mortgage payment, even though he has already been retired for a few years. In addition, baby boomers do not have sufficient money to afford their retirement age and maintain their standard of retirement living. Furthermore, baby boomers who are retiring have not paid off their debt completely and they are necessarily spending their substantial amount of income on paying it back. Consequently, baby boomer
Many people in the "baby boomer" generation are staying active as they age. By either jogging, swimming or becoming part of a sports team. They strive to remain youthful and mentally young and view retirement as an active period of their life. Theirinterest in health , fitness, looking young and attractive and longevity is quite phenomenal. They can expect to live longer due to medical advances however stress and burnout could impact on this expectation of longevity. They are well educated, thirsty for information interested in travel and will want to stay involved in the political processes. In addition they are optimistic, forward thinking and undoubtedly redefine old age. As the oldest of the nation's 75 million baby boomers approach the age of 60, a Pew Research Center survey finds many are looking ahead to their own retirement while balancing a full plate of family responsibilities either raising children or providing financial and other
Today, the certainty of receiving sufficient benefits solely from Social Security for a quality standard of living after retirement is indefinite. Baby boomers—individuals born post World War II between 1946 and 1964—are beginning to claim their benefits, and given what I have learned in class, the number of individuals entering the workforce is inadequate to sustain such a large population, thus such generation will consume
Baby boomers are people born between 1946 and 1964. The baby boomer generation will turn 65 by the year 2030. One-fourth of the entire population, will be seniors. With so many medical advances, many Americans are living longer, 5.8 million of seniors are expected to be older than 85. With so many baby boomers living longer, and the United States facing a growing rate of chronic diseases, we could be facing a health care crisis.
Some economic observers predict financial disasters, both national and personal, when the baby boomers retire. They say that as nations of workers and investors become nations of retired consumers, withdrawals will far outweigh deposits in investment and savings vehicles.
The Baby-Boom generation is nearing retirement and it is clear that millions of aging Boomers are financially under prepared. Reasons are many - poor savings habits, rising medical costs, the demise of guaranteed corporate pensions, and the dreaded squeeze faced by many: i.e. having to pay college costs for their children, care for their elderly parents, and save for retirement, all at the same time.
Most baby boomers will be retiring and it was because the social security to drain and future people who will retire in throughout the upcoming year to consider other ways to finance their retirement. They are the highest earners in the United States. Boomers have an impact on the buying habits of Americans. They contribute about 77% of wealth in America. Without baby boomers, many retail businesses would suffer from much lower profits.
In a recent find, the whole financial system that was created to keep the lives of normal everyday citizens like you and I afloat, will be absolutely dismantled by the “Baby Boomers” this age group would have drained almost all of the financial resources available in the Social Security System by the time the 2030’s arrives. With that there will be clouds of doubt cascading upon the lives of everyday middle class Americans moving forward especially with the Millennials, out of all the age groups they are viewed as being less optimistic of the financial future, and who can blame them? As evident in the article written by David Bass “The Millennial Perspective” he noted in a recent Pew Research report that 72 percent of Millennials don't believe
In the coming decade, over 20 percent of the national population will reach the age of retirement. Not to mention, many studies have shown that numerous baby boomers are not financially prepared for retirement. A survey taken place in 2015 with 12,000 Canadians showed that 49 percent of people aged 55 to 64 had saved less than 10 percent of their savings target for retirement to date. In addition, there will be a decline in workplace pension plans due to the aging baby boomers which means that only 24 percent of private sector workers are funded through the pension plan. This indicates the importance of baby boomers to finance their retirement. On the other hand, the current low interest rates are making it more difficult for the boomers to save for retirement. The result will undoubtedly have many boomers maintaining a steady life or cause suffering to many others living a lower standard of living. In conclusion, the pre-retirement baby boomers cannot fully reply on the government for financial support and should think about their future financial state if they want it to resemble their current
Baby Boomers have been one of the most powerful forces in shaping the economic environment and are the wealthiest generation in the United States (Kotler and Armstrong, 2015). “In their early years, “Leading Edge” Boomers enjoyed economic prosperity, and their resulting financial power in their prime years drove rising trends in everything. However, the recessionary years of the early 1970’s also added cautionary realities to their youthful consumption and employment dreams” (“America’s Oldest Boomers”, n.d.). Baby boomers control approximately 70% of the disposable income in the United States, therefore, they are known as being one of the most influential financial forces in the marketplace (“Baby Boomers Report”, 2015). As they reach their
While using financial ratios to measure wealth adequacey, Love, Smith, and McNair (2008) examined the current wealth adequacy of older U.S. households, those age 55 and older, using the 1998-2006 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). To establish a benchmark of wealth adequacy, poverty-line wealth was analyzed to establish a base-line level of wealth required to provide income over the projected remaining lifetimes of each household member. Due to the poverty line being an unaspiring goal to meet, 1.5 to 3 times poverty wealth was used as a relevant threshold. The results of the study indicated that the median older U.S. household is reasonably prepared for retirement, with a ratio of comprehensive net wealth to present value poverty-line wealth of about 3.9 in 2006. The study also determined that 18 percent of households possessed less wealth than what is necessary to generate 150 percent of poverty-line income over their expected future lifetimes. When comparing the leading edge of the baby boomer generation in 2006 to households of the same age in 1998, Love et al. (2008) determined that the 2006 baby boomers held slightly less wealth than their elders. Moreover, single boomers showed higher incidence of inadequacy than the previoulsy measured generation.
About nine months after World War II, The largest generation was born. We called them the baby boomers. In 1946, 3.4 million were born, another 3.8 million in 1947 and more than 4 million every year from 1954 until 1964 when the numbers finally went down. The baby boomers made up 40% of the nations population and thats about 76.4 million of them in total.
The truth is that the baby boomer population makes up a large portion of the population in the U. S. (Martin, 2014). Baby Boomers who are also referred to as the Graying of America are individuals who were born between 1946 to 1964, which makes up about 29 percent or 76 million in the U. S. population (Martin, 2014). It has been found that most baby boomers or about one-third of Americans do not contribute anything at all to retirement savings nor pension plan (Tang et al., 2013). In terms of longevity, the U. S. Census Bureau projects that individuals ages 85 and older are expected to grow to approximately 20 million by the year 2050 (Martin, 2014). According to the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of persons aged 65 and older has increased by 101% between 1977 and 2007, the number of employed men that are 65 or older has increased by 75% and 147% for women (Tang et al., 2013).
Today, the certainty of receiving sufficient benefits solely from Social Security for a quality standard of living after retirement is indefinite. Baby boomers—individuals born post World War II between 1946 and 1964—are beginning to claim their benefits, and given what I have learned in class, the number of individuals entering the workforce is inadequate to sustain such a large population, thus such generation will consume
Many Gen X’s will need to dip into their retirement savings to pay for expenses. Many have already done so. More than 50 percent of Gen X’s are still working and believe their income after retirement will come from pensions, 401k distributions and other forms of income. They do not believe that social security will be able to provide them with full benefits and 44 percent may not have enough income for
With the workforce in America decreasing due to hard economic times, there is no guarantee the money put into the reserve will sufficiently support a generation when it is time for retirement. Depending on Social Security to support a person financially when ready to retire, will leave that individual in even more of a struggle than the beneficiaries trying to survive in these earlier years of the 21 century. Social Security benefits represent about 41% of the income of the elderly; if there is not enough to support even half of the elderly’s financial needs now, there is no reason a younger person should depend on it alone for retirement (Dewitt, 2010) in the future.