“Millennial Millions” $$$$$$
As an elder law attorney, I am often confronted with the challenges that elderly people and baby boomers are faced with, and helping them plan for the rest of their lives. But when I saw a skit on Saturday Night Live called Millennial Millions, I had to share it without everyone I know. I really makes a case for the Millennials having a beef with the Baby Boomers.
First a little lesson in who’s who:
- Baby Boomers: Baby boomers were born between 1944 and 1964. They’re current between 54-74 years old (76 million in U.S.)
- Gen X: Gen X was born between 1965 – 1979 and are currently between 39-53 years old (82 million people in U.S.)* Gen Y: Gen Y, or Millennials, were born between 1980 and 1994. They are currently between 24-38 years old.
Click here to watch this video. then come back to this article. It is a skit about how the baby boomers are sucking the life out of Millenials. This is funny, but in a way it is no joke.
I have been talking about the generation war that will ensue because older people are taking resources that the younger generation must pay for. In the course of my research over this, I have found that many Millennials believe that the baby boomers inherited a rich and dynamic country that they turned around and bankrupted by habitually cutting their own taxes and borrowing money without any concern for future burdens.
In so doing, many believe that the boomers have spent virtually their money and assets on themselves and in the process have left a financial disaster for their children.
They may feel that the country will have to make choices between saving Social Security and Medicare and saving arctic ice sheets because there will be fewer and fewer resources to deal with these issues.
As boomer, I am concerned that there are not enough resources to pay for our long term care needs which no one, not one politician is speaking about.
As of today’s date, 24 hour care at home is $15,000 a month and $6,000-$8,000 in a facility. Although if the ice sheets melt we may not be alive to have to make these choices.
Then there are the Gen-X/Yers. Ever since the Gen-X/Yers began working, they have paid 12.4 percent of their earnings to Social Security which will likely be raised in the coming years to more than 17 percent to delay the 2038 catastrophe. The Medicare tax (which is now a mere 2.9 percent) will increase because that program faces an even worse crisis than Social Security.
In contrast, the Boomers will get a bargain. When they entered the workforce in the late 1960s, they paid only 6.5 percent of their earnings to Social Security and nothing to Medicare.
For about half of their working years, the Boomers paid 10 percent or less to Social Security and less than 1.25 percent to Medicare. Only from 1990 on, when the Boomers had earned paychecks for a quarter-century, did they start paying 12.4 percent to Social Security and 2.9 percent to Medicare – the same percentage Gen-X/Yers have paid their whole lives.
This is where the real war will start. Boomers will have paid less of their earnings into Social Security than Gen-X/Yers, yet will receive more in benefits and than Gen-X/Yers who will pick up the tab.
And when they retire, there will be no money saved in Social Security to pay for their retirement.
If you want to make sure that you Gen-X/Yers or Millienials get repaid, make sure to leave them in your Living Trust. If you need help with that, or have any questions, just email me.