Lately all the so-called analysts have started talking a lot about the financial crisis pending in the retirement of the Baby Boomers. And the projections for the future are the same in all these “studies”: when this generation begins to retire en masse, around the year 2011, the pension system (Social Security) will collapse.
There are some differences in the details, of course. Some people predict that the retirement benefits themselves will drain the coffers of the social security system in their country (no matter what you call it); others tell us that Medicaid is going to drain the system and so on. There are also differences when it comes to the year that state pension systems will become insolvent (or bankrupt). Depending on who you’re listening to, you’ll learn that “doomsday” comes in 2017, 2024, 2032, etc.
The one thing everyone agrees on – a The pension crisis is coming…
However, if you’re willing to dig a little deeper into the subject, you can easily discover that concerns about the pension system and the looming retirement crisis for Baby Boomers have almost nothing to do with the current economic crisis- finance that started in 2008.
Many researchers warned us since the late 1990s and early 21st century, long before we saw a crisis on the horizon. Very reputable researchers told us that Baby Boomers don’t have enough savings for the retirement they dream of. Other researchers looked at demographic trends and concluded that there won’t be enough money to pay for retirement benefits for all Baby Boomers.
Unfortunately, no one wanted to hear that news because we lived in a dream world. It is a well known and established fact that we Baby Boomers hate to face the reality of simple natural processes like aging and death. We were never ready to address those issues and we put off all major decisions until it was too late. We are now at that “too late” stage.
