Thanks to the marvels of medical science, our parents are living longer than ever before. Most will spend years dependent on others for the most basic needs. That burden falls to their baby boomer children. In The New Old Age, Paula Span and other contributors explore this unprecedented intergenerational challenge. You can reach the editors at newoldage@nytimes.com.
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Working into retirement age is changing the way workers' compensation programs must handle claims. Developing new techniques to handle aging worker claims requires new economic and social considerations. Today's post is shared from alfa.org.
A new survey reveals the financial impact the Great Recession has had on the Baby Boomer generation. 47 percent of working adults surveyed said they now expect to retire later than they previously thought, with an average retirement age of 66. This figure was nearly three years later than the respondents’ reported estimate when they were 40. Working in "Retirement"The poll, conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, surveyed 1,024 people aged 50 and older nationwide. Those surveyed were asked questions about their employment status, financial situation, and plans for retirement.Overall, men were more likely than women to postpone their retirement plans. Minorities, parents of dependent children, those without health insurance, and those with an annual income of less than $50,000 were also more likely to delay their plans. Among those surveyed who had already retired, 4 percent said they were looking for a job and 11 percent are already working again. Among employed respondents, 82 percent said they were likely to seek at least part-time employment for extra income during retirement. Retirement Savings and AgeismWhen asked specifically about retirement savings, about an equal share of those surveyed felt secure about the amount of savings they have for retirement (46 percent) as feel anxious (45 percent). However, the researchers found that a significant portion of respondents gave signs of... |
This is apropos of nothing. I happened to be fiddling around with CMS health care expenditures and decided to take a look at how spending has increased year-over-year as a share of GDP for the past four decades. (Example: If spending increases from a 16 percent share of GDP to a 16.4 percent share of GDP, that's a year-over-year 2.5 percent growth rate.)
The chart below is a rolling 5-year average to smooth out the noise. Roughly speaking, it shows a steady decrease in the growth rate. If things continue along these lines, health care spending will continue increasing until it reaches about 21-22 percent of GDP sometime in the mid-2020s. The aging of the baby boom generation might send that number a little higher, but not by a lot, I suspect. The mechanism is simple: As spending goes up, our collective resistance to higher spending increases, and that's the ultimate brake on health care expenditures. I'm willing to bet that U.S. spending on health care will never top 25 percent of GDP. It might not even top 23 percent.  |
