Part of the reason unemployment is so low is the baby-boomers are retiring.

[shraby]

Their jobs are opening up by the thousands. The following generation is smaller because the boomers went into the workforce and put off having children.

Now a smaller generation of young people is trying to fill the jobs. Also the boomers will cause a big boom in jobs in the health care, long term care, and physical therapy fields that will require even more people to fill the jobs.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

1. Great analysis !!!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. I don't think that's true. A lot of people aren't retiring because they can't.

Many older workers lost their jobs during the recession and haven't worked at anything decent since because it's almost impossible to get a good job if you're over 50. The real reasons for low unemployment have little to do with retiring baby boomers. https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshbersin/2018/07/03/the-ugly-side-to-todays-low-unemployment-rate/#7be08a583e99

[shraby]

3. The ones I'm familiar with are retiring right on schedule. Not working any longer than they

absolutely have to. Many already have health problems. Bad knees, bad hips, slipped discs, rotator cuff problems. You name it. The ones retiring are in more labor intensive jobs.

Not the white collar workers, although they are looking forward to kicking back and enjoying life out of the cubicles.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. More older people are continuing to work than in the past.

There are plenty of reasons. Boomers, as a group, are healthier and more active than prior generations. Social Security also incentivizes delaying collection until 70 by enriching monthly benefits 32% for those who ignore their so-called full retirement age of 66 and don’t collect until 70.

But there is still more behind the longer time in the workforce - and many Boomers may well work well beyond 70.

The single biggest reason cited by just about every study, mentioned by every expert, and shouted by most aging Boomers is this simple: lack of dough. Many Boomers saw their retirement kitty contract in the Great Recession of the past decade. Others worked for companies that steadily shrunk pension contributions to the point where a pension check may be barely enough to buy a Happy Meal. Money - or the lack of it - coupled with a desire to continue living the good life (and paying the bills associated with it) is the number one driver of prolonged Boomer work.

Said Steve Silberberg, 54, at adventure vacation company Fitpacking in Hull, Mass., “I speak for most of us when I say we'd love to retire but don't have the funds to do so.” Silberberg indeed speaks for many. Maybe 40% of Boomers have said they have no retirement savings, not a penny. Work is about their only option.

https://www.thestreet.com/story/13474521/1/why-baby-boomers-are-not-retiring.html

[shraby]

8. Mr. Shraby retired early at 61. He'd had it with working. Called me from work and said

he was coming home.

We didn't have much savings, but he got a pension and then social security kicked in and we manage pretty nicely. I would surmise others will too. It doesn't take a whole lot to live modestly and watch the money carefully.

Many of the older workers are working a few hours a day. Those are probably the ones without any pension and have just social security.

[JCMach1]

9. Killing a whole generation in Academia

My generation got screwed on the front in as boomers hired more boomers for positions in 1990s and 00's. Now, Boomer Administrators fill retired positions with adjuncts... So, as an experienced professor and Admin. It is nearly impossible to get a full-time position.

Seriously thinking of bugging out of the USA again.

Gen X and over 50, so doubly screwed.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. Many universities discovered that it was much cheaper to hire adjuncts

at about $3K per course and no benefits than to hire or retain full-time faculty. They needed the money for their football programs and to be able to pay the coaches a million bucks a year. Don't get me started...

[noobareus]

24. Football doesn't cost most large universities a penny

In fact at most div 1 schools the football program pays for every other sport at the school.

Football is a HUGE revenue producer for school athletics

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

25. Not so much any more.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-01-06/college-football-teams-are-risky-and-expensive-and-schools-keep-adding-them

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-01-04/college-football-s-top-teams-are-built-on-crippling-debt

[noobareus]

28. statistics don't lie

Last edited Sun Aug 19, 2018, 11:54 AM - Edit history (1)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/aliciajessop/2013/08/31/the-economics-of-college-football-a-look-at-the-top-25-teams-revenues-and-expenses/#37366a0e6476


http://smartycents.com/articles/college-football-revenue/


Here's a quote from the second link

For the 10 football programs with the greatest net revenue in 2012-2013, an average of 37 percent of football revenue was spent on expenses for the football program, for everything from the tuition, room and board for the scholarship student athletes to coaching salaries, travel, equipment and more.


Eta:
Here is the breakdown of the revenue and expenses of the women's sports teams at the University of Michigan for one year

WOMEN’S TEAMS



Basketball
$440,353
$3,171,595
-$2,731,242
Field Hockey
$64,657
$1,332,123
-$1,267,466
Golf
$45,360
$698,307
-$652,947
Gymnastics
$100,723
$1,595,390
-$1,494,667
Rowing
$32,098
$2,171,364
-$2,139,266
Soccer
$45,000
$1,651,739
-$1,606,739
Softball
$300,721
$1,769,859
-$1,469,138
Swimming and Diving
$49,097
$1,595,350
-$1,546,253
Tennis
$62,831
$921,116
-$858,285
Track and Field, X-Country
$141,452
$1,867,920
-$1,726,468
Volleyball
$151,635
$1,626,854
-$1,475,219
Water Polo
$2,798
$885,803
-$883,005


That is a lot of money lost right there and a lot of student athletes. Added up that is HUNDREDS of student athletes at one college who wouldn't be in school right now if not for the football program.Times that by the one hundred and whatever total div 1 schools and that is a lot of people who wouldn't be getting an education right now if not for football

[noobareus]

30. heck,if it wasn't for football

most schools would have to drop most of what would be considered their *minor* sporting teams.

Where do you think the money comes from for scholarships for things like the rowing team or the judo team or the fencing team and so on and so forth?

If you take every div 1 school and add it up their are ten of thousands of non football athletes getting scholarships because of the football program.That's ten's of thousands of students,male and female,who wouldn't be going to school right now except for the revenue produced by college football

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

31. Why are there college sports at all? What's wrong with just going to college

to learn stuff? I know that's a separate issue, but universities are spending big bucks on sports facilities while academic programs go begging. My college didn't even offer athletic scholarships; the football team sucked and it went for almost seven years without winning a single game - and we were damn proud of that fact, because the money went for real scholarships and real education, not coddling a bunch of jocks who needed tutoring just to graduate.

[noobareus]

33. but that is just a different way of making the same argument

Again at most div 1 schools the college isn't paying ANY student athlete expenses.The football team pays for it all.

As far as money going for real scholarships and real expenses,tell that to the tens of thousands of students who wouldn't be in school right now if not for the football program.
Would you rather they not be in school?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

37. Give those students academic scholarships

so they don't have to risk brain damage and blown-out knees by the time they're 22, and better still, they've actually learned something useful for a future career that doesn't involve sports - because most college athletes don't ever make it into pro sports.

[noobareus]

40. so right now all those student athletes are going to college

on scholarships and it isn't costing the school one penny and you think they should take that away and the school give them all academic scholarships.Where is all that money going to come from?

ETA: I wasn't aware of this rash of brain injuries and blown out knees on the badmitton team and the archery team and the golf team

[Blue_playwright]

14. Ditto.

Even struggling to land good adjunct gigs.

[blueinredohio]

11. I agree with you shraby

There were many more boomers than later generations so more jobs to fill. Also where I retired from was 25 and out and depending on how labor intensive the job was depended on how long you stayed, most were out after 25 or 30 at most.

[TheFarseer]

4. You and op have very different takes

I would love to know who is closer to the truth. It would be interesting to know if enough older folks are going back to work to cancel out all of those retiring.

[FakeNoose]

18. Demographics of the baby boomers - there are more of us than the next younger group

Yes a lot of boomers are retiring now, if we can manage it. There are also many others in our age group who would like to, but can't manage it on whatever savings they have plus SS. So that's why you're hearing from both sides - those who can retire, others who can't. In the meantime the many who are retiring now are opening up opportunities for the younger ones, and that is a good thing.

[quaker bill]

20. I can

and I will retire a tad early.

[rickford66]

5. We Boomers are also taking money out of our 401k's

Those 401k's fueled a lot of the market gains since the 80's. I understand the younger people aren't contributing either by choice or circumstance. The market has to level off for a while.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

21. Are you talking about Req'd Minimum Distribution at age 70.5?

Or pulling money out for some emergency?

Now that I'm 70.5 (and then some), I have to take a certain amount out every year.

[rickford66]

22. Any withdrawal required or not.

Like many others, I've been taking payments since i was 66. No penalty after 59 1/2. I'm sure more retirees are taking out money before the 70 1/2. I'm 72, one of the earliest Boomer. Company pensions disappeared or were nonexistent during my working years so I put as much into the 401k as possible and I needed it when my company laid off most of the engineers when I just turned 65. Immediately signed up for Medicare and SS. Certainly us Boomers affected the Stock Market. Where else could we put savings? The 401k was a banking scam we were forced into throwing the dice on our own pensions.

[SWBTATTReg]

7. Makes sense...nt

[LonePirate]

12. Nope. There are more Millennials than Baby Boomers. There are still more people than jobs.

Many Millennials are working 2-3 jobs or are working gigs just to get by. There certainly are not enough good jobs for Millennials like there were for Baby Boomers.

[diane in sf]

15. There weren't a lot of great jobs for boomers...

[LonePirate]

16. As a Gen Xer, there were plenty of Boomers who kept me from good jobs.

[Fiendish Thingy]

13. Actually, I think this year, for the first time, millenials outnumber boomers

Add to the mix Gen X and Z, and I don't think your analysis is quite accurate, although retiring boomers certainly are a significant factor.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

17. It's complicated.

A lot of Boomers are retiring. As many as possibly can. A lot are still working, full or part time, mainly because they need the money.

I can recall reading stuff at least thirty, probably more like forty years ago, about how the work force would change because of the demographics. Wish I could recall more specifics, although the book Great Expectations by Landon Y Jones is instructive. It came out in 1980 and talks about the pig in the python, the huge bulge of the baby boomer generation moving through time that was going to influence a lot of stuff for a very long time.

Boomers did not put off having children. They had them in normal numbers. And at very close to the ages the elder generations reproduced. And at only a slightly lower rate than the prior generation that created the Baby Boom. It's the subsequent generations, GenX, Millennials, and the current rising generation who are not having children at the same rate as their elders. Keep in mind that the youngest of boomers is 58 (I prefer the Howe and Strauss definition of the Boomer generation as having been born between 1943 and 1960) and are long past child bearing.

But yes, retiring Boomers are opening up job opportunities for younger workers. It's about time.

[phylny]

19. I've been working two days a week for a few years

and I'm fully retiring at age 61 next year. My husband is retiring at age 64 next year also, although since he's a subject matter expert for his large company, he'll work part-time as a consultant. We are very fortunate to have a pension, company savings plan/401K, and Social Security that will fund our retirement. We realize we are more fortunate than most. Friends of ours are also eyeing retirement.

We have worked very hard since we were teens. It *is* about time.

[DFW]

23. I suppose I COULD retire, but then what?

I'm 66 now, a few to-be-expected health issues, but my main issue is dying of boredom. I know I can't keep up this next-day-next-country schedule forever, but after 43 years, I can still do it (eat yer heart out Jason Bourne), and I can't find a replacement to take my place.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

26. My husband works part-time because he wants to......

Not because he has to.

He has 3 retirement pensions...IBM after 30 years, a local manufacturing company after 10 years, and the Military after 23 years. Plus, he invested wisely starting in the early 80's when IBM started their Deferred Tax Savings Plan or a 401K. Then add in Social Security. A number of years ago, he transferred a stash of cash into a Roth IRA. It was not until age 70, did he start to take out the limit of investments in order to avoid having to pay taxes. Our house is paid for, and what debt we have is not insurmountable. My husband is 73, I am 66.

I earn a decent income from my business, though I too work part-time, itemize everything, use my home for my business. That gives us legal tax breaks. We also watch what we spend, yet we are able to travel and have a comfortable life.

Hopefully, my adult children, are following in our footsteps that they will need double or triple the amount of retirement savings to live a comfortable life as well. One child manages a Sleep Number Bed store. The other is a Doctor of Chiropractic. Both kids have children as well.

[MichMary]

27. I think

the millennial generation is actually bigger than the baby boom generation.

[beachbum bob]

29. some truth in this BUT retirees are also working longer and working part time

[blur256]

32. My mom just retired this year

After 30 years of teaching. She was weighing it heavily and I finally told her, look, you CAN retire. I don't expect retirement will ever be on the table for me. Luckily my wife will be eligible for a pension through her church as soon as she is ordained. But I can't foresee a future for myself where I get a job that actually offers retirement. So I'm glad my mom took my advice. She is 65 and thinks about getting a job for something to do, which I understand, but she doesn't need to. I have a master's degree and although I like my job, we don't even have the option for a 401k. Wages are still at a standstill and things are going to shit. I would actually implore everyone that can retire do so. The rest of us will not be that lucky.

[DesertRat]

35. LOL

[greatauntoftriplets]

36. Looks like someone's been sent to reshelve right-wing talking points.

[DesertRat]

38. ...

[greatauntoftriplets]

39. ...