BOOMERS HOARDIING MONEY

NOT SUCH GOLDEN YEARS AFTER ALThe Baby Boomers have most of the wealth and power in America, so why are they so angry when this gets pointed out? In recent weeks, a collection of economic data and explanations of structural forces preventing important things like housing affordability, household formation and economic mobility have provoked many responses—some thoughtful, some angry, some even defensive, but increasingly urging me to look beyond the reliable generational framing. “Your article is gross,” one wrote to me. Advertisement “There is no balance in the world we live in!” another said, adding, “a golf ball is a golf ball no matter how you putt it. So is the economy! Adapt!” Another gave me a sense of the angst felt when broad macro strokes don’t capture the reality on the ground for every micro-case: ” You write like every boomer is sitting on a McMansion and a seven‑figure IRA,” one bereaved Boomer wrote to me. “A lot of us are one bad diagnosis away from losing everything.” Still another wasn’t much of a hater at all, but wrote with wistfulness about what’s gone down. “Many boomers are poor, scared, and anxious about the life they have left,” they wrote. “They were led to believe that if they worked hard and climbed the corporate ladder you would eventually be able to be financially secure and retire at 65 and enjoy their ‘golden years.’ Many tried this approach but ran into misfortune along the way.” Either there was a layoff at 55 to 60 years old, unanticipated health issues, or others. “Life happens. For many boomers, the golden years are not golden, and they don’t have much to look forward to. Their bodies are broken and they are still in debt. They are trapped in a life without a way out and their future does not look golden. Yes, they live longer, but for too many of them, not better and certainly not in a way they expected when they were younger.” It speaks to the very real sense many Boomers have that things weren’t supposed to end up like this. The generation that rode cheap college, rising home prices, and the 401(k) revolution into late career was expected to bow out gracefully, freeing up houses and jobs for their kids and grandkids. Instead, millions are hanging on—staying in big homes they can’t quite afford to leave and in jobs they can’t quite afford to quit—because they’re confronting a grim reality: in financial terms, they are broke and living too long. A generation that can’t afford to retire Roughly 30 million “peak boomers” are turning 65 between 2024 and 2030. Two‑thirds of them will not be financially prepared to maintain their pre‑retirement lifestyles, according to an analysis by ALI Retirement Income Institute economist Jason Fichtner and colleagues that modeled their assets, expected lifespans, and spending needs. More than half have $250,000 or less in retirement savings—before health shocks, market downturns, or long‑term care—which means they will lean heavily on Social Security and work income to get by. Vanguard’s research on “young baby boomers” reaches a similar conclusion from a different direction. Only about 40% of workers in their early sixties are on track to sustain their standard of living in retirement; the typical near‑retiree faces about a 24% income gap, roughly $9,000 a year. Other surveys find that nearly half of boomers have less than $100,000 saved and about a quarter have nothing set aside at all, despite being at or near traditional retirement ages. For a generation that could easily spend 20 to 30 years in retirement, the math does not pencil out. Dan, a 71-year-old who retired in 2021, wrote to me of his “head-down and plow-in-the-dirt mentality,” claiming he never missed a day of work in 18 years at a mechanic shop (third shift.) But in the past two or three decades, “we all (not just Baby Boomers) saw our spendable income shrink. How far is it going to shrink? No one knows. Not only that, many of our benefits have been substantially reduced or taken away.” https://ca.yahoo.com/finance/news/golden-years-not-golden-boomers-113000201.html