Friday, July 08, 2005
Boomers hit retirement milestone
[Albert B. Crenshaw, "Boomers hit retirement milestone," The Seattle Times, 3 July 2005.]
This recent piece highlights the corner American demographics is turning, and warns of the impact an aging population is likely to have on struggling entitlement programs:
This July 1 is the date when the very oldest members of the baby-boom generation turn 59 ½, the age at which they are allowed to begin making penalty-free withdrawals from their IRAs and other retirement savings accounts.
And in 2 ½ years, at age 62, they will be able to start drawing Social Security. Again, they don't have to, but they can. And with Social Security there is enough history to suggest that many if not most of them will.
The baby boom, which added an estimated 76 million Americans to the population, began in 1946 and ran until 1964. Boomers have been yanking the nation around almost from the beginning, starting when they swamped elementary schools in the 1950s, and their impending retirement is viewed by many experts as a plunge into the unknown.
[T]he net is already under enormous strain. Medicare outlays already exceed Medicare taxes, and the same will be true of Social Security beginning, current projections show, in 2018.
Kansas already has a higher-than-average senior citizen population and is losing its youth to other states. If the sustainability of programs such as Medicaid that provide for long term care is in question now, how will it fare once the boomers hit the system? Policymakers need to begin reforms to rein in spending and restore these programs to their original intent as last resort services for the truly needy, not guaranteed entitlements for all.
[Stephen A. Moses, "Project Proposal: Controlling Medicaid Long-Term Care Costs," The Flint Hills Center, January 2004.]
[Albert B. Crenshaw, "Boomers hit retirement milestone," The Seattle Times, 3 July 2005.]
This recent piece highlights the corner American demographics is turning, and warns of the impact an aging population is likely to have on struggling entitlement programs:
This July 1 is the date when the very oldest members of the baby-boom generation turn 59 ½, the age at which they are allowed to begin making penalty-free withdrawals from their IRAs and other retirement savings accounts.
And in 2 ½ years, at age 62, they will be able to start drawing Social Security. Again, they don't have to, but they can. And with Social Security there is enough history to suggest that many if not most of them will.
The baby boom, which added an estimated 76 million Americans to the population, began in 1946 and ran until 1964. Boomers have been yanking the nation around almost from the beginning, starting when they swamped elementary schools in the 1950s, and their impending retirement is viewed by many experts as a plunge into the unknown.
[T]he net is already under enormous strain. Medicare outlays already exceed Medicare taxes, and the same will be true of Social Security beginning, current projections show, in 2018.
Kansas already has a higher-than-average senior citizen population and is losing its youth to other states. If the sustainability of programs such as Medicaid that provide for long term care is in question now, how will it fare once the boomers hit the system? Policymakers need to begin reforms to rein in spending and restore these programs to their original intent as last resort services for the truly needy, not guaranteed entitlements for all.
[Stephen A. Moses, "Project Proposal: Controlling Medicaid Long-Term Care Costs," The Flint Hills Center, January 2004.]
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