Boomers Blamed (again) For Being Boomers; This Time It's the Underfunding of Social Security and Pensions

Marilyn Haight's "Boss and Workplace Issues" latest post "Bad Government Bosses Squandered Boomers' Taxes—Now Boomers are Blamed" takes exception with the notion that the huge population of Baby Boomers will take more from social security than it has to give.

"Excuse me!" says Marilyn. "...what happened to all the money the huge population of Baby Boomers paid in income and social security taxes over the last 40 years?"

Marilyn makes a point that few people bother making. Specifically, if there is a bubble of boomers going into retirement then there was a bubble of boomers working over the past 50-odd years paying into the system.

While the government received windfall revenues from the largest population of workers ever in the history of the United States, what were the OMB economists and politicians doing? Did it not occur to them that this generation of heavy-taxpaying citizens was going to grow old? It should have looked like a seasonal cash flow problem to them—the kind of problem that budgeters with even the most meager resources know how to handle—when you get most of your income in one season, you save for the slower seasons. Got a glut of tax revenue in one generation? Save for its old age—it's practically a no-brainer. But it's so much easier to blame the generation whose taxes were squandered for still being alive.

It's far easier to blame boomers and the compliant media is only so happy to oblige this line of thinking. Worse, boomers are being blamed for the insolvency of private pensions as well. It makes on wonder if there isn't anything that boomers won't ultimately be blamed for.

Joking aside, tomorrow's retirement is not going to look anything like previous generations. People are living longer, safety nets are disappearing, and health costs are skyrocketing. What's more, baby boomers expect more out of their retirement--and rightly so.

The steps to deal with this are research and planning; both of which can be accomplished here at LifeTwo. Please look below and click the relevant topics "money" and tags "retirement" to read our various postings on the subject.