The Coming Generational Warfare
The average monthly Social Security check is now $1,230. It is not subject to the employment tax and at age 65 you also get great health insurance for only $99.90 a month.
Workers at McDonald’s, which is hiring, earn about $8 an hour, pay the employment tax and, most often, don’t get health insurance…
We need to start worrying about whether millions of uninsured low wage workers will be capable of supporting the growing millions of well insured retirees who no longer work.
Source: Scott Burns.
I’m sure the warfare won’t be pretty.
I’m afraid the youngsters will leave us on the ice floe.
The problem is that the Baby Boomer generation is huge compared to the generations that followed. These unequal cohorts make pay-as-you-go systems impossible to maintain. The tail end of the Baby Boomer generation is the group likely to get burned. The system is likely to implode about the time they’re ready for retirement. Medicare and Social Security should never have been set up to be pay-as-you-go systems.
Neither party seems serious about doing anything about this problem.
They’ll try to raise taxes enough to sustain SS one last time – maybe put in place a sales tax.
Prediction: kids will start moving back home. Home prices decline, taxes increase, and multigenerational housing becomes the new thing. We’ll keep doing that until the population distribution becomes more normal again.