4 ms·

If you are 40, you are one of about 5 people supporting those retired. When you are retired, there will be about 2 people supporting you.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
rwmj 3y ago
These are the numbers that matter, although there are wildcards like someone inventing a "Robot & Frank"-style affordable robot that can look after the elderly.
- pc86 3y ago
  These numbers only matter if you plan on subsisting entirely off of social security in retirement, which even if you are maxing out your SS taxes every year and plan on living a minimum-wage level existence in retirement, is almost impossible mathematically. If you're under 40 (maybe even 50), wrapping social security income into your retirement calculations is a fool's errand. I'm in my 30's and basically treating it as play money. If it's there I might use it to help buy a car or something in my 80s, but I'm assuming I'll get approximately $0 for everything I've paid in supporting today's retirees.
  - jewayne 3y ago
    Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system. Meaning it can and will pay out some level of benefits as long as there is the political will to do so. SS catastrophism is all about undermining that political will, and bringing about a self-fulfilling prophecy of collapse, to the benefit of the very wealthiest in this country. Don't buy it. Don't spread it.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      > Meaning it can and will pay out some level of benefits as long as there is the political will to do so This is trivial. But “some level of benefits” could theoretically mean using all of the nations’s productivity to support the elderly. The pertinent question is what level of wealth transfer will the working populations tolerate, especially if the current workers believe they will be getting less when it is their turn to receive.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      It's probably a reasonable working assumption that eligibility ages may get pushed up, benefits might be trimmed, but the system will still be there--especially given that private sector defined benefit pensions mostly just exist for people who had them decades ago.
  - trashtester 3y ago
    > These numbers only matter if you plan on subsisting entirely off of social security in retirement, Actually, number of workers per retired person matters A LOT regardless how you look at it. If you disregard imports, the total amount of goods and services produced per capita goes down. No amount of cash can buy more stuff than is for sale in a market. As more and more money chase less and less stuff, inflation has to go up to compensate. And these two workers can demand more or less what they wish, while old people get poorer and poorer. And there is a limit to how far down society will let the pensions of the poorest retired people go, so some way will be found to bring enough cash for them to have at least a little. Meanwhile, the working people can more or less demand what they want in saleries, if the shortage of workers is great enough. And if the government tries to take a lot from them through taxes, they can always go on strike, move abroad or something similar. Those with savings but no productivity, who are rich without working, they are fair game in such a society. The word "boomer" is already a slur used against a generation seen as pulling the ladder up after themselves. And as the number of retired people per worked continues to go up, such thinking will just gain traction.
jewayne 3y ago
Probably not, at least in the US. Life expectancy is falling.
- pneumatic1 3y ago
  This is driven by drug overdoses of working age people.
  - jewayne 3y ago
    Who will never retire.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      It does not seem to be offsetting increasing longevity: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/median-age https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/median-age
      - jewayne 3y ago
        Median age is also impacted by the birth rate, which keeps falling in the US. Why aren't we having a conversation about raising the birth rate?
        jplusequalt 3y ago
        If you want more working class people to have kids, you need to give them room to breathe financially.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        “We” are, there are usually multiple discussions per week on this forum, and on the national USA level, it was a big part of the proposed Build Back Better bill. See “American Families Plan” section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Plan
zeroCalories 3y ago
This is my schizo catastrophizing: No one working, everyone consuming, so we get either high inflation or high debt. If high inflation, old people need a strong welfare state or they die, so we get high debt. Young people need to pay for the debt of their elders, so high taxes. Productivity plummets because taxes are high and tax revenue decreases. Life gets worse for everyone. One escape is that we have to drastically increase the retirement age. Getting rid of a welfare state wouldn't help, because they would still be consuming without being productive. Another solution is that we kill all old people. Another possibility is that innovation allows us to make investments that drastically increase productivity, but that's not guaranteed either. As the problem gets worse, I think we will see this play out in formerly wealthy European countries and Asia, as their aging populations are further ahead than the US. Great opportunity for the US and third world countries to seize economic power from these places though.
- jewayne 3y ago
  > This is my schizo catastrophizing You misspelled psychopathic. Drastically increasing the retirement age only makes sense to us keyboard jockeys who rarely even see physical labor up close. Data shows that people in physical jobs start to break down physically in their mid 40s. It's silly to think that these people are going to work until they are 75. > Another solution is that we kill all old people I mean, let's be frank. We're talking about killing poor old people. Have you looked at Congress lately? We need to ask, is our economic system here to serve the human species, or was the human species put on on this planet to serve our (current) economic system? Since modern capitalism has only existed since the Dutch East India Company, I think the answer is obvious.
  - wing-_-nuts 3y ago
    >Data shows that people in physical jobs start to break down physically in their mid 40s. It's silly to think that these people are going to work until they are 75. I do wonder how this squares with the fact that the average age in the skilled trades is 55, and 57 in farming. I know those jobs are more physically demanding, but I always doubt the extent to which blue collar jobs 'ruin your body'. In my experience, the wise old farts in the trades are in much better health than their compatriots in sedentary roles in the office. There's just more opportunities for young bucks to hurt themselves in the trades if they aren't careful and follow proper safety procedures.
throw_pm23 3y ago
Living at 2/5-th of the expenses of those retired in the developed world today does not seem so tragic as some make it sound. In fact, I already live at around 40% of the average expenses of my peer group with little observable decrease in quality of life.
polski-g 3y ago
Gen A would be wise to learn from the Koreans on how to hide their income/wealth to avoid subsidizing the old, because that is all they will be doing.
dahwolf 3y ago
I'm sure you mean that in a financial way, but let's not forget about the social aspect. I'm currently in a phase where the boomers in our family are moving into permanent elderly care, as well as a few that have passed on already. What is striking is their rich support system. Most have several siblings, partners of those siblings, their own children, partners of those children, grandchildren. So there's a relatively large amount of people able to contribute to the care, even if just by doing the occasional visit. If each does a little, that's still plenty for a humane type of care. A lot of this care is done by the women in the family whom in the post-boomer generation still often had the traditional role. The social care will be dramatically different in the future. Most people have few siblings if any. Few children if any, whom may be less capable to help out as they're busy staying afloat. And most women aren't housewives anymore either. In other words: you are mostly on your own compared to the current retirees. Importantly, we should not use this to bash the elderly. Rather we should strive for a world where working two incomes until you're 70 is curtailed. We're over-asking people.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

rwmj 3y ago

These are the numbers that matter, although there are wildcards like someone inventing a "Robot & Frank"-style affordable robot that can look after the elderly.

pc86 3y ago
These numbers only matter if you plan on subsisting entirely off of social security in retirement, which even if you are maxing out your SS taxes every year and plan on living a minimum-wage level existence in retirement, is almost impossible mathematically. If you're under 40 (maybe even 50), wrapping social security income into your retirement calculations is a fool's errand. I'm in my 30's and basically treating it as play money. If it's there I might use it to help buy a car or something in my 80s, but I'm assuming I'll get approximately $0 for everything I've paid in supporting today's retirees.
- jewayne 3y ago
  Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system. Meaning it can and will pay out some level of benefits as long as there is the political will to do so. SS catastrophism is all about undermining that political will, and bringing about a self-fulfilling prophecy of collapse, to the benefit of the very wealthiest in this country. Don't buy it. Don't spread it.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    > Meaning it can and will pay out some level of benefits as long as there is the political will to do so This is trivial. But “some level of benefits” could theoretically mean using all of the nations’s productivity to support the elderly. The pertinent question is what level of wealth transfer will the working populations tolerate, especially if the current workers believe they will be getting less when it is their turn to receive.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    It's probably a reasonable working assumption that eligibility ages may get pushed up, benefits might be trimmed, but the system will still be there--especially given that private sector defined benefit pensions mostly just exist for people who had them decades ago.
- trashtester 3y ago
  > These numbers only matter if you plan on subsisting entirely off of social security in retirement, Actually, number of workers per retired person matters A LOT regardless how you look at it. If you disregard imports, the total amount of goods and services produced per capita goes down. No amount of cash can buy more stuff than is for sale in a market. As more and more money chase less and less stuff, inflation has to go up to compensate. And these two workers can demand more or less what they wish, while old people get poorer and poorer. And there is a limit to how far down society will let the pensions of the poorest retired people go, so some way will be found to bring enough cash for them to have at least a little. Meanwhile, the working people can more or less demand what they want in saleries, if the shortage of workers is great enough. And if the government tries to take a lot from them through taxes, they can always go on strike, move abroad or something similar. Those with savings but no productivity, who are rich without working, they are fair game in such a society. The word "boomer" is already a slur used against a generation seen as pulling the ladder up after themselves. And as the number of retired people per worked continues to go up, such thinking will just gain traction.

jewayne 3y ago

Probably not, at least in the US. Life expectancy is falling.

pneumatic1 3y ago
This is driven by drug overdoses of working age people.
- jewayne 3y ago
  Who will never retire.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    It does not seem to be offsetting increasing longevity: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/median-age https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/median-age
    - jewayne 3y ago
      Median age is also impacted by the birth rate, which keeps falling in the US. Why aren't we having a conversation about raising the birth rate?
      - jplusequalt 3y ago
        If you want more working class people to have kids, you need to give them room to breathe financially.
        deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        “We” are, there are usually multiple discussions per week on this forum, and on the national USA level, it was a big part of the proposed Build Back Better bill. See “American Families Plan” section: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Plan

zeroCalories 3y ago

This is my schizo catastrophizing: No one working, everyone consuming, so we get either high inflation or high debt. If high inflation, old people need a strong welfare state or they die, so we get high debt. Young people need to pay for the debt of their elders, so high taxes. Productivity plummets because taxes are high and tax revenue decreases. Life gets worse for everyone. One escape is that we have to drastically increase the retirement age. Getting rid of a welfare state wouldn't help, because they would still be consuming without being productive. Another solution is that we kill all old people. Another possibility is that innovation allows us to make investments that drastically increase productivity, but that's not guaranteed either. As the problem gets worse, I think we will see this play out in formerly wealthy European countries and Asia, as their aging populations are further ahead than the US. Great opportunity for the US and third world countries to seize economic power from these places though.

jewayne 3y ago
> This is my schizo catastrophizing You misspelled psychopathic. Drastically increasing the retirement age only makes sense to us keyboard jockeys who rarely even see physical labor up close. Data shows that people in physical jobs start to break down physically in their mid 40s. It's silly to think that these people are going to work until they are 75. > Another solution is that we kill all old people I mean, let's be frank. We're talking about killing poor old people. Have you looked at Congress lately? We need to ask, is our economic system here to serve the human species, or was the human species put on on this planet to serve our (current) economic system? Since modern capitalism has only existed since the Dutch East India Company, I think the answer is obvious.
- wing-_-nuts 3y ago
  >Data shows that people in physical jobs start to break down physically in their mid 40s. It's silly to think that these people are going to work until they are 75. I do wonder how this squares with the fact that the average age in the skilled trades is 55, and 57 in farming. I know those jobs are more physically demanding, but I always doubt the extent to which blue collar jobs 'ruin your body'. In my experience, the wise old farts in the trades are in much better health than their compatriots in sedentary roles in the office. There's just more opportunities for young bucks to hurt themselves in the trades if they aren't careful and follow proper safety procedures.

throw_pm23 3y ago

Living at 2/5-th of the expenses of those retired in the developed world today does not seem so tragic as some make it sound. In fact, I already live at around 40% of the average expenses of my peer group with little observable decrease in quality of life.

polski-g 3y ago

Gen A would be wise to learn from the Koreans on how to hide their income/wealth to avoid subsidizing the old, because that is all they will be doing.

dahwolf 3y ago

I'm sure you mean that in a financial way, but let's not forget about the social aspect. I'm currently in a phase where the boomers in our family are moving into permanent elderly care, as well as a few that have passed on already. What is striking is their rich support system. Most have several siblings, partners of those siblings, their own children, partners of those children, grandchildren. So there's a relatively large amount of people able to contribute to the care, even if just by doing the occasional visit. If each does a little, that's still plenty for a humane type of care. A lot of this care is done by the women in the family whom in the post-boomer generation still often had the traditional role. The social care will be dramatically different in the future. Most people have few siblings if any. Few children if any, whom may be less capable to help out as they're busy staying afloat. And most women aren't housewives anymore either. In other words: you are mostly on your own compared to the current retirees. Importantly, we should not use this to bash the elderly. Rather we should strive for a world where working two incomes until you're 70 is curtailed. We're over-asking people.