NO USA baby boomer crisis, says author

I just read Income Investing Today: Safety & High Income Through Diversification by Richard Lehman, and he casually dismissed the upcoming
baby boomer retirement crisis.

No problemo, he says. Most baby boomers just aren't going to retire, at least not for many years.

He notes that in 1935 when the Social Security Act was passed in the United States, the average life expectancy was 64. Therefore, they knew in advance that over half of all workers weren't going to collect Social Security at all!

Now life expectancy is in the 80s. There's no reason to stop working at age 65, and so baby boomers won't. They'll be too scared of running out of money before they die.

This will bolster the Social Security trust funds, because these older workers will keep paying into the system. Plus, they won't be drawing checks until they reach the age (I think it's now 70) when they can receive full checks no matter how much money they earn.

This will also bolster the Medicare trust fund, because these boomers will still be covered by health insurance (though he doesn't seem to think about how much demands will be placed on health insurance companies by covering so many people in the 60s and 70s).

I think he's correct to a degree, but it won't be as smooth as he implies. For one thing, I'm sure that most baby boomers will not want to continue working at the same job they've hated for the past 30 years.

Start an online auction business, yes. Sell macrame designs, yes. Teach English to children in Nairobi, yes. Open up a bait shop in the Ozarks, yes.

Keep working the same, dull boring job -- no.


no baby boomer retirement crisis
no baby boomer retirement crisis