The Retirement Apocalypse Approaching: Baby Boomers vs. Millennials Most Americans are entering retirement on the verge of being broke. And this with the stock market setting new all time highs. Yet somehow, many Americans never had enough left over to invest after the bills were paid. It is interesting how the pension has been painted as some evil sin while corporate CEOs have ridiculous pay packages that would make Marie Antoinette blush. That is the environment we currently live in. Worship the financial gods while everyone that is poor or struggling is somehow a pariah. Corporate welfare for the connected and painful austerity for the working class. The pension has undergone a slow and painful death at a time when millions of baby boomers are retiring. Welcome back to The Atlantis Report. You are here for your daily dose of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Please take a second to hit the like button, hit the subscribe button, and don't forget to also hit the notification bell. Thank You. According to USA Today: The gap between CEO retirement benefits and the nest eggs of average U.S. workers is even more extensive than the imbalance between compensation for the highest- and lowest-paid employees, a report issued Wednesday shows. The 100 largest U.S. CEO retirement packages are worth a combined $4.9 billion, equal to the entire retirement account savings of 41% of American families, according to the report by the Center for Effective Government and the Institute for Policy Studies watchdog groups. The CEO nest eggs on average are worth more than $49.3 million, enough to produce a $277,686 monthly retirement check for life, the report said." Looking at Americans retirement savings, about 70% have less than $1,000 saved! Even those nearing retirement around 55–61, the median retirement savings are only $17k, which is about 1/4th of the median annual wage in the U.S. (in other words, about three months' worth of expenses). Here's how many Americans have nothing at all saved for retirement Back in the old days, we would just let people starve to death or go homeless or go without healthcare, and this would only be considered a crisis for the people who didn't plan ahead. These days Americans won't let people starve or go homeless or go without healthcare, so they'll take the money for these people to live from the already struggling millennials. There are several trends that are going to collide, creating a perfect storm. We have an aging population. In fact, there's a deluge of retirees coming on the social security pay out roles right now . Ten thousand people every day are going from putting in to taking out of social security. Wages aren't increasing, so tax revenues aren't growing. The national debt has skyrocketed in the last ten years, even as the economy is in good shape. There's likely to be another recession soon, and then we'll really see the national debt go nuts. Saying the government is out of money is an understatement, and that's before the baby boomers; a considerable portion of the population retired. Healthcare continues to get more expensive, and people in retirement are the primary healthcare users. The government simply can't afford all of the Medicare expenses. Medicare Part D was started under the Bush administration, which is the pharmaceutical care for Medicare (which costs a fortune), and Medicare taxes were never increased to pay for it. Debt is far higher than ever. Auto loans are one huge one, plus there are more people that are retiring without paying off their house than ever. Conditions such as Alzheimers and dementia, which are becoming much more common each year, make care very costly (comfortably six figures per year) for skilled nursing facilities. Millennials are poorer at this point in their career and much more in debt than the baby boomers were at their age. So far, we've been doing ok simply because the retirees who lived through the Great Depression were quite the savers, but baby boomers are a new breed. They haven't saved nearly as much money, and they have control of the government to vote themselves more money (knowing this is probably why they haven't saved much). The fact that millennials' finances are by in large a dumpster fire is what will spark the apocalypse I'm referring to as, Baby Boomers and Millennials fight for money the government doesn't have. The U.S. Debt Tripled Since 9/11. It's more like quadrupled by now since 2001. And that national debt is not even including social security and Medicare which is a separate accounting from the national debt but is about twice as much as the entire rest of the federal budget combined ,and are calculated with a fair degree of certainty to begin burning through the massive reserves starting in 2019 and be gone in 16 years. It never was possible for all those boomers to retire as they’d been promised. SOMETHING was going to happen, either the system would collapse under the weight, or somebody would figure out a way to steal it. But there was no way they were going to get to retire in comfort with so few people supporting them. 2037 is the year in which the Social Security Administration estimates that it will go bankrupt unless changes are made to how the system is funded. Americans are having fewer children and living longer, both of which contribute to an aging population. Baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) are now retiring at a record pace: As of 2018, 16% of the population is age 65 (the earliest retirement age at which you can collect full benefits) and over, and by 2060 it is estimated that it will rise to 23%. At the same time, the working-age population will be getting smaller, from about 62% today, to 57% in 2060. These trends result in declining worker-to-beneficiary ratios. As we move forward, there will be fewer people putting money into the Social Security system and more people taking money out. Because of these factors, the Social Security Administration estimates that all the money in the Social Security "bank account" will be exhausted in 2037, when it will have only about 76% of what it should payout that year. That means that without any changes to the system if you're in your 40s or 50s today, you could conceivably not receive Social Security benefits during retirement, even though you're paying into the system now. We've put more money on Uncle Sam's credit card since the iPhone 6 came out than the first 240 years of the United States of America's existence. The vast majority of Americans have under $1,000 saved, and half of all Americans have nothing at all put away for retirement. "Nearly half of families have no retirement account savings at all," the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) reported, even in savings vehicles such as IRAs and 401(k)s. The median for U.S. families is just $5,000, and the average for families with some savings is $60,000. And according to a 2016 GOBankingRates survey, 35 percent of all adults in the U.S. have only several hundred dollars in their savings accounts, and 34 percent have zero savings. Even older workers who can see retirement on the horizon aren't prepared for it. The median savings for families whose wage earners are between 50 and 55 years old is only $8,000. For those who are between 56 and 61, it's $17,000, reports the Economic Policy Institute. In contrast, here's how much experts say you should have saved at every age. By midlife your cushion should be well-padded, if you want to be able to retire, says Kimmie Greene, money expert at Intuit and spokeswoman for Mint.com. Here's her advice: By age 50, have five times your annual salary saved. By age 55, have six times your annual salary saved. By age 60, have seven times your annual salary saved. The discrepancy between what workers know they should do and what they manage to do may be why so many Americans' number one financial regret involves not saving enough: A whopping 46 percent of adults surveyed by Bankrate about their biggest money mistakes wish they had squirreled more away, whether for retirement, emergency expenses or their children's educations. Given that less than 13 percent of Americans have pensions — though as recently as 25 years ago, that figure was 38 percent — and for millions of U.S. workers, "the grand 401(k) experiment has been a failure,". So how will seniors cope? Some expect to rely more on Social Security, Gallup reports, though that was always intended to be a supplement, not a primary source of income. Others expect to rely on help from the next generation. According to the Natixis U.S. Investor Survey, 24 percent of baby boomers expect that "contributions from children" will play an essential role in funding their retirement. No word on how the famously cash-poor millennials are anticipating handling that expense, or even whether they've been warned. You need to know this number: $18,433. That's the median amount in a 401(k) savings account according to a recent report by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. Almost 40 percent of employees have less than $10,000, even as the proportion of companies offering alternatives like defined benefit pensions continues to drop. Older workers do tend to have more savings. At Vanguard for example, the median for savers aged 55 to 64 in 2013 was $76,381. But even at that level, millions of workers nearing retirement are on track to leave the workforce with savings that do not even approach what they will need for health care let alone daily living. Not surprisingly, retirement is now Americans' top financial worry, according to a recent Gallup poll. To be sure, tax-advantaged 401K . One big part of the problem is the corrupt monetary system. The US declared bankruptcy in 1971 when Nixon ended what was left of a commodity money system. It has been downhill ever since whether you are blue collar or white collar or just some guy trying to make a living. The taxation is also a killer. No real incentive to work when local, state, and federal taxation consumes a solid 1/3 before and after your check in addition to the taxes and regulations you can’t see. We are being robbed of our pensions and savings every month as we live in a country that borrows and prints to make up their out of control spending deficits. Greenspan said it best when he told congress .The US will never default on its Social Security payments as they can just print the money, the real question being if that money will be worth anything due to inflation. This was The Atlantis Report. Please Like. Share. Leave me a comment. Subscribe. And please take some time to subscribe to my backup channels, I do upload videos there too. You'll find the links in the description box. You will also find a PayPal link if you want to make a donation. Thank you wholeheartedly to all those of you who have already donated. Stay safe and healthy friends!
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