The Baby Boomers’ Retirement Nightmare

For Baby Boomers, one of the most wrenching aspects of The Great Recession has been watching their retirement dreams slip away. Instead of inheriting the wealth their parents took more than 60 years to accumulate, Boomers can only watch in dismay as this once-vast sum is depleted by a combination of rising expenses, paltry yields and longer lives. Who would have imagined even a decade ago that $1 million banked for retirement would generate barely enough income for a modest lifestyle, never mind cruises to Tahiti, Broadway shows and golf vacations in Scotland?

While their parents worry about running out of money if they live into their eighties and nineties, Baby Boomers are getting squeezed from the other end as their children graduate college with poor job prospects, worthless degrees and hefty college debts. And yet, there is no getting around the fact that these kids, as well as tens of millions of workers now in their thirties and forties who will never know financial security, will have to pay for the Baby Boomers’ Social Security and Medicare. Obviously, something has to give. But what?  That is the Question of the Week.