At times, I feel like I’m the only one on this earth that can look down the road and see what’s coming up in our country.
Oddly, this is not a RobZerrvation on our economy, gun control, immigration or any other politically charged subject, well, at least not directly.
Rather, it’s about the Boomers. Yes, those offspring of over amorous soldiers of World War II who came home and created an unprecedented swell of humanity between 1946 and 1964. During that time, about 78 million children came into this world.
To handle this bubble of birth, our country had to build tons of new schools to house these moppets and entire industries sprang up virtually overnight to cater to Boomer children. We were the first homogenous generation of Americans – weened on television, giving us all a common consciousness and memories.
We have seen the most amazing things in our lifetime, from practicing Duck and Cover drills in school to survive a nuclear holocaust to watching man walk on the moon. We protested an unpopular war, ushered in an era of drug experimentation and sexual freedom, and witnessed the assassination of some of our most inspirational leaders, ones that could have changed the very course of our country.
Of course, we all grew up. In the 1980s and 1990s many of us sold out to corporations and became the “over 30s” that we told ourselves we should never trust. We did a really good job selling out. Now we control over 80% of all the financial assets in this country, half of discretionary spending and half of all consumer spending.
But as we grow older, we also account for 77% of all prescription drugs and 61% of the over the counter medications.
We are all getting older. And it’s causing another ripple effect in our country, one that I wrote about in the 1980s when I was still in corporate.
It was there that I wrote a presentation on Dick and Jane. You remember them. Those wonderful primers with Father, Mother, Dick, Jane, sister Sally and Spot. I wrote a send up of the primers, showing what happened when Dick, Jane and Sally grew up to be Boomer adults.
The news wasn’t good either.
As we all know, schools are being closed throughout the country. We mourn their loss, often because they are the schools we attended. But there aren’t as many children around. We were a unique bump in the census. And the ripple continues into our old age.
Every hour 330 people turn 60 in this country. That’s a lot of candles to blow out. We aren’t the spry youth of yesterday bent on changing the world. We never got around to it. Life got in the way. Many of us became obsessed with chasing the almighty dollar instead of world peace. We didn’t hold onto it very well. Most of us lost our nest eggs in the Great Recession. That cushy retirement is gone for many of us. Nearly half of us are delaying retirement and 25% of the Boomers say they will never retire, either because they don’t want to or can’t.
We are already beginning to see the strain our rickety old bones are having on healthcare. Many doctors can’t take more patients, they are swamped. And because we are freaks of a post-war world, there aren’t enough younger people coming along to fill these key roles in our society.
Case in point. It’s estimated that there will be a need for one million new nurses in the next 10 years or so. After all, someone has to take care of us. And where will we be staying? There’s already waiting lists at assisted care facilities and many retirement homes and communities. Why? There are simply too many of us and no one seemed to anticipate the demand.
What were our leaders thinking? We’ve known since at least 1962 that these old codgers were going to need a place to live, a source of income, healthcare and other key services. We knew that businesses were getting out of the business of nice retirement benefit packages – too expensive. And few of us have the expertise to invest intelligently.
So now we’re in a hole, one that’s going to get bigger as the years go on. I’m kind of lucky. I am near the tail end of the Boom Generation so many of the problems will already be addressed by the time I really have to worry about my Golden Years. By then, hundreds of thousands of apartments and condos that now stand empty will have been converted to senior housing.
Impossible you say? Here’s a nifty statistic for your doubters. Right now, Boomers account for 28% of our population. While we would like to, we can’t live forever and the statistics seem to bear this out. By 2029, only 16% of the population will be Boomers. The other 12% will be pushing up daisies.
At some point, someone has to look in the crystal ball and admit that this is going to be a problem. Eventually, all these old people, just like our aging parents, will need to be taken care of. Because we all had smaller families who have families of their own, chances are good they won’t have the resources to help us much. And the Great Recession has destroyed any wealth we had socked away.
Now, I’m not trying to be all doomy gloomy here. There are some bright spots. First, you won’t have to worry about having a job down the road. Experts predict there won’t be enough workers to fill all the jobs in America. And assuming we don’t get all immigration happy, the population will eventually decrease because 28% of us – the Boomers – will eventually kick the bucket and the number of children being born isn’t even close to keeping up with the size of families our horny parents had.
Where does all this lead? I don’t really know. I only know that when someone says they don’t know how they are going to retire at 65 or 70 I reply they don’t really have to worry about it. We’re all in the same boat. I guess it’s a good thing that misery loves company because at least for now, there will be a lot of company.
Out on the Treasure Coast beta testing an old folks condo for those of us late Boomers,
– Robb