I'm looking at an article in the Washington Post that is behind a paywall, but is available through the Firefox browser interface. That article profiles a cross section of 6 baby boomers who have no retirement savings and is interspersed with statistics. It talks about how they all got to where they are. The situation looks very bleak indeed especially now that the first pandemic has struck. I'll post a few excerpts.
Half of American families in the 56-to-61 age bracket had less than $21,000 in retirement savings in 2016, according to a longitudinal study by the Economic Policy Institute that used the most recent available figures. A less formal survey last year found that little had changed.
A study at Stanford University found the baby boomers have, in real terms, about 20 percent less in savings, 20 percent lower household wealth and 100 percent more debt than the generation born during World War II.
40 percent of retired Americans ... have Social Security as their only income.
The average Social Security benefit is about $1,461 a month.
“I’m looking, but nobody wants a 70-year-old,” she said. “I’ve applied for a zillion jobs. It’s completely impersonal.”
But only about one-quarter of employed Americans work continuously through their 50s and their early 60s in jobs with benefits, according to a study by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.
“It was surprising bad news,” said Munnell, who conducted the study. Many older workers are being pushed out of old jobs, with benefits, and taking whatever they can find. Or were before the coronavirus hit.
In 2019, the number of employed Americans over the age of 65 grew by more than 700,000, to 10.6 million. That accounted for 36 percent of the country’s job growth.
But covid-19 could halt that trend. “If older workers can’t work in high-contact areas,” said Teresa Ghilarducci, who studies aging and employment issues at the New School University in New York, “employers will have to make accommodations for them.” That’s an expense. They’ll have to accept worse working conditions or lower pay — or see those jobs go to younger people, she said.
“We’re going to see a lot of disruption — political and economic,” she said. “There is nothing that will slow down the desperation of older workers.”
People in their 50s and 60s have come to be seen as more vulnerable because of the disease, Munnell said, and those who have lost their jobs this spring will be less attractive to potential employers. “It has just made the prospects more dismal," she said. “I think they’re going to have a harder time reentering.”
Just print more money, right? As Americans like to say, "Easy peasy." In my opinion, life is about to get very hard in America as it enters a new dark age.
While the periphery breaks down rather slowly at first, the capital cities of the hegemon should collapse suddenly and violently.
