Baby Boomers Approaching 65 and a bit Glum (Pew Reasearch Center)

Pew Research Center
By D’Vera Cohn and Paul Taylor
12/20/10

The iconic image of the Baby Boom generation is a 1960s-era snapshot of an exuberant, long-haired, rebellious young adult. That portrait wasn’t entirely accurate even then, but it’s hopelessly out of date now. This famously huge cohort of Americans finds itself in a funk as it approaches old age.

On January 1, 2011, the oldest Baby Boomers will turn 65. Every day for the next 19 years, about 10,000 more will cross that threshold. By 2030, when all Baby Boomers will have turned 65, fully 18% of the nation’s population will be at least that age, according to Pew Research Center population projections. Today, just 13% of Americans are ages 65 and older.

Perched on the front stoop of old age, Baby Boomers are more downbeat than other age groups about the trajectory of their own lives and about the direction of the nation as a whole.

Some of this pessimism is related to life cycle – for most people, middle age is the most demanding and stressful time of life. Some of the gloominess, however, appears to be particular to Boomers, who bounded onto the national stage in the 1960s with high hopes for remaking society, but who’ve spent most of their adulthood trailing other age cohorts in overall life satisfaction.

At the moment, the Baby Boomers are pretty glum. Fully 80% say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country today, compared with 60% of those ages 18 to 29 (Millennials); 69% of those ages 30 to 45 (Generation Xers) and 76% of those 65 and older (the Silent and Greatest Generations), according to a Pew Research Center survey taken earlier this month.

Boomers are also more downbeat than other adults about the long-term trajectory of their lives – and their children’s. Some 21% say their own standard of living is lower than their parents’ was at the age they are now; among all non-Boomer adults, just 14% feel this way, according to a May 2010 Pew Research survey. The same survey found that 34% of Boomers believe their own children will not enjoy as good a standard of living as they themselves have now; by contrast, just 21% of non-Boomers say the same.

The 79 million member Baby Boomer generation accounts for 26% of the total U.S. population. By force of numbers alone, they almost certainly will redefine old age in America, just as they’ve made their mark on teen culture, young adult life and middle age.

In 1970, when the oldest of the Baby Boomers were in their early 20s, the total publicly held national debt was about $283 billion, or about 28% of the Gross Domestic Product. Now, as the oldest Boomers approach age 65, the federal debt is an estimated $9 trillion or 62% of GDP – creating IOUs that members of younger generations may be paying down for decades.

However, a new Pew Research survey finds little appetite among Boomers for deficit reduction proposals that would take a bite out of their own pocketbooks. For example, 68% of Boomers (compared with 56% of all adults) oppose eliminating the tax deduction for interest paid on home mortgages; 80% (compared with 72% of all adults) oppose taxing employer-provided health insurance benefits; and 63% (compared with 58% of all adults) oppose raising the age for qualifying for full Social Security benefits. Pew Research complete report

Baby Boomer Bankruptcies Going Postal...however Wall Street and Political Boomers continue to do very well

By Eric Morath
Wall Street Journal

Baby Boomer Bankruptcies on the Rise

A growing number of baby boomers are going bust.

A newly released study found that 42% of all individuals filing for bankruptcy were between the ages of 45 and 64 in 2007 and that older Americas are filing for protection from creditors at a much faster rate than younger adults.

“The baby boomers are disproportionately represented in bankruptcy proceedings,” wrote John Golmant and James Woods, who compiled the study that appears in the September issue of the American Bankruptcy Institute’s ABI Journal. Golmant is a statistician and Woods is a social science analyst, both with the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts in Washington.

Bankruptcy filings are increasing fastest among individuals between the ages of 55 and 64, the study found. From 2002 to 2007, the percentage of filers in that category grew 65%.

By comparison, the demographic group that experienced the largest percentage drop in bankruptcy filings was Americans 25 and younger, down 60% in 2007 from 2002.

“This significant demographic uptick in older bankruptcy filers has outstripped the aging of the general population as a whole,” Golmant and Woods wrote.

The authors said the recent housing crisis is at least partly to blame, as falling home prices left baby boomers with little or no home equity. The study noted that persons older than 50 were often targeted during the refinancing boom in the early part of last decade.

High levels of credit card debt and mounting health care bills also contributed to the higher number of filings among older Americans, the study found.

The recent study shows the continuation of trend stretching back to at least 1994. In that year, people between the ages of 55 to 64 accounted for 7% of all individual filings. In 2007, the same group accounted for 15.2% of consumer bankruptcies.

Grandpa

Almost 80 MILLION born between 1946 and 1964 are deemed Baby Boomer. As an "age" member of the Baby Boomers generation, I am saddened and disgusted as to what our generation has NOT CONTRIBUTED to society since the Viet Nam War. We prided ourselves on "not selling out" and of course the infamous "anti-establishment" chant. Fast forward and the "anti-establishment" became pro-establishment, win at any cost, take no prisoners and step on the face of anyone that is a potential obstacle to one's way to the top.

The "step on your face and all about me boomers" include:

1. Ben Bernanke (Federal Reserve Chairman and has made sure that parents of baby boomers receive absolutely no return on the money they spent a lifetime saving),
2. Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase CEO and deemed the golden boy by the Obama administration),
3. Lloyd Blankfein (Goldman Sachs CEO and all around "how much did you sell your mother for" guy while doing God's work),
4. Larry Summers (Successfully lobbied to repeal the Glass-Steagall Act and upon its repeal; "This historic legislation will better enable American companies to compete in the new economy").
5. Tim Geithner (Treasury Secretary and all around inept and manipulative putz),
6. Dick Fuld (ex-CEO of now defunct Lehman Brothers however rec'd $484 million compensation package from 2000 to 2007),
7. John Thain (ex-CEO of Merrill Lynch and $35,000 commode),  
8. Christopher Cox (ex-Chairperson of the SEC and was basically "MIA" during his tenure),
9. Robert Nardelli (ran Home Deport into the dirt and left with a $210 million severance package and then proceeded run Chrysler into the same dirt),
10. Mark Hurd (ex-CEO Hewlett-Packard, Sexual Harassment charges and $25+ million severance parting gift),
11. Richard "the Dick" Grasso (chairman and chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange from 1995 to 2003 and recipient of a a deferred compensation pay package worth almost $140 million),
12. Franklin Delano "Frank" Raines (he and two other Fannie Mae executives agreed to a $31.4 million settlement with the government over their roles in a 2004 accounting scandal),
13. Daniel Mudd (Mudd collected more than $80 million in his 8 years at Fannie Mae and held the position of President and CEO for 3 years until the U.S. Government took over Fannie Mae in September 2008).