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.
My father has Parkinson’s and my mother, who was his primary caregiver, passed a few months ago. They went from being comfortable with their finances and having a small, but nice home, to my father now going into a nursing home and likely lose everything he owns because of how expensive nursing care is. We are looking at $7k a month with zero assistance from Medicare and he has enough money that he doesn’t qualify for Medicaid but will burn through all his assets in just a short time. It’s ridiculous that people work hard and save and it’s all gone in a flash.
Let the debt die with him. Get that house into a trust, or out of his name however you can. Don’t let greedy corporations steal the generational wealth he worked hard for and surely wants to pass on, and not have taken away by the health care industry. A few grand on lawyers and accountants now will save you hundreds of thousands down the line.
Your father needs to put his assets into a trust ASAP then. Once he divests through the trust he will qualify for Medicaid. It’s unfortunate that we need to jump through these hoops, but it is what it is.
I’ve seen it go both ways. Things are so much better for the kids when assets are in a trust. Without it, I’ve seen people lose everything. Don’t give the dirty debt collectors a dime.
Because the system isn’t designed to work for even the upper middle class, or even the comfortably independently wealthy. The system is designed to continue diverting all of that hard work’s rewards towards the wealthiest tier of wealthy.
Nobody is safe from this vampirism, not even those who would call themselves rich. As it is, wealth will always siphon down to the parasites at the bottom. We’ve all been fooled into thinking we’re at the bottom of a pyramid (or, if you’re lucky, somewhere in the middle), but it’s really just a funnel, sucking everything down to a single point.