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What is going on now is very different even with Boomers that are close to (if not already) retired.
Divorces, 2nd families and credit are all things that HUGELY impact Boomers both positively and negatively.
If you did not have to divide assets, did not misuse credit and did not have to support both your former and current family, you should be sitting better than many that have. Growing up I knew only 1 couple that were in my parents social circle that divorced, now good luck finding one that isn't...all in one generation.
Paka I think you have hit on a big reason why a good percentage of Boomers are not better off. I never knew anyone in my age who's parents were divorced except for me. My mom did great after the divorce but dear old dad ran up credit card bills with his second wife. Mom has passed on but dad is still kicking but I think he is doing well enough now that I do not need to stand over his shoulder to make sure.
There were some great stories out of this thread. Honorable mentions here are RiverBird, Mathjak and TuborgP had some very good points. I am troubled by a couple of posts.
Marcea for one I do understand where you are coming from but not all pensions were a scheme. In fact they were real investments made by those employers that gave them. Also as bad as it seems Americans will not do with less. I am a "glass is half full" person and believe in the American population that when the chips seem lost they find a way to pull an Ace out of the dwindling deck.
The same I feel with bpollen. Please note that it has all been doom and gloom from so many places. The sky is falling all over and we will never get out of here alive never helps.
Utopian slums WOW! I cannot even come up with something that can answer you.
Honestly we have a great life. I know I did better in someways than did my parents. At least so far my marriage is strong and we have not let lawyers reap in the profits of our work. I believe in America and I do see that we will eventually figure out things are not as bad as they seem. I work with some very rabid folks left and right. Both are at each other trying to prove the other wrong. I can tell you with great certianty that they are both wrong to a degree and they are both right. What both sides need to do is come together and work out the differences in that they are both arguing that there is a problem. It is how to solve the problem is where the real disagreement is.
My father was a mailman for many years.
He retired at age 63.
Not much in savings and what he did have, he would give some to me and my brother.
When he died in the nursing home, all he really had was a 3 year old TV set and the clothes on his back.
As long as I can recall, he only ever had 1 brand new car and that was an econo box with crank down windows and no power seats.
Always food on our table, clothing and shelter.
Even with his low salary, I never thought we would end up on the street.
I didn't even know what a homeless person was back then.
One credit card, not much debt and never extravagant.
To me, he was a big success and made it through life the hard way.
I have a lot these days, more than I am probably entitled to and would hope that he would be proud of my accomplishments......but not of some of the debt I am trying to pay down.
It's said that it's easier for a camel to fit through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to get into heaven.
hey you could be my brother . my dad was a postal worker and died in a nursing home too with nothing .
in fact when we tried to get medicaid for him , that postal worker pension h worked a lifetime for was 50 bucks a month over the medicaid limit , that is how low it was .
hey you could be my brother . my dad was a postal worker and died in a nursing home too with nothing .
in fact when we tried to get medicaid for him , that postal worker pension h worked a lifetime for was 50 bucks a month over the medicaid limit , that is how low it was .
Or maybe the Medicaid limit is too high? What is it anyway?
1. Everyone around me who is middle class or upper middle, etc, puts their funds in a trust so they can essentially hide their money from the government to get their parents' house and money. The boomers are LITERALLY "Trust Fund Kids."
You clearly don't understand how trusts work. They do not "hide the money from the government." Income inside a trust is taxed, and in fact it's tax treatment is less favorable than personal income outside a trust.
Trusts are mainly used for two reasons: The first is to be able to pass assets to heirs without going through the process of probate, which is time consuming and typically costs a lot in legal fees. The second is to provide for more complex distributions to heirs other then simply giving them the assets. For example, someone with heirs that are minors at the time of death may want to use a trust to enable a trustee to control how and when the minor recieves the assets in the estate.
Now, are Boomers in line to receive significant assets inherited from their parents? Yes, I think the statistics indicate that's true, but it's not hidden from the government.
You clearly don't understand how trusts work. They do not "hide the money from the government." Income inside a trust is taxed, and in fact it's tax treatment is less favorable than personal income outside a trust.
Trusts are mainly used for two reasons: The first is to be able to pass assets to heirs without going through the process of probate, which is time consuming and typically costs a lot in legal fees. The second is to provide for more complex distributions to heirs other then simply giving them the assets. For example, someone with heirs that are minors at the time of death may want to use a trust to enable a trustee to control how and when the minor recieves the assets in the estate.
Now, are Boomers in line to receive significant assets inherited from their parents? Yes, I think the statistics indicate that's true, but it's not hidden from the government.
if the gov't wanted to close the loop holes for protecting assets from medicaid via irrevocable trusts they could stop it in a heart beat . they already made the look back 5 years from 3 years , they could make it 20 years too if they wanted .
but states do not want to see the people of their state impoverished because we have a poor system in place .
that is why most states offer partnership plans for long term care that not only provide the insurance but eliminate all look backs for getting medicaid as well as remove income restrictions on the stay at home spouse to get medicaid. you go right from insurance to medicaid picking up the bill with out even shifting assets .
our state , ny went so far as to implement a special form of medicaid providing those features above for anyone who partners up with state sponsored plan and takes just 3 years coverage . .
My mom lived in poverty after having to "retire" due to disability. She passed away at 65. My dad retired from a large steel mill and had to move to a very low COL area after his retirement because of his low pension and the fact that my mom got half the equity from his house which he had never removed her name from. His employer went bankrupt and he was forced to take a buyout of his health insurance. He got $8000. Since he was a diabetic he could not get any insurer to accept him and his buyout was used to pay for his medical care and lasted less than two years. My step-mom worked as a waitress until she was in her 70's to supplement their income, at which time she developed breast cancer and, of course, had no insurance and had to go on Medicaid in addition to Medicare.
My DH's parents were considered solidly middle class and lived a nice but modest retirement with her smallish pension, his investments, and SS. They used her inheritance from her grandmother for travel money. MIL is now in a reasonably priced AL, her income from her pension, SS, and VA A&A just cover the payment ($2850/month).
We have it so much better than them because we watched what happened with them and learned by observing their experience and that of others. There is a reason to sometimes view the world as a cautionary tale.
So far, after 18 months in retirement, I would say that my parents would envy me.
They grew up without much of an education and worked low paying jobs all their lives. No such thing as a pension for them. We did own our little (and I do mean little) house on a dirt street. Never had much but we had what we needed to survive.
My father died in 1973 and my mother kept working until she hit 65. Stayed in her house until she was 78 and when low income housing was built on the old grapefruit grove in back of her house, sold the house for the princely sum of $17,000 and moved into her little subsidized apartment. She managed to live on her Social Security of about $600 per month along with dipping into her savings at times and our help. At the age of 101, she moved into assisted living, which at $3200 per month made short work of her savings. After 18 months there, she fell and wound up in a nursing home, on Medicaid and died with exactly $1000 to her name. She had always said that she didn't want to die dirt poor, so I made sure that there was that thousand in her savings account, which of course went toward her final expenses..
So even though my wife and I only have one pension for the grand sum of $340 per month, when I look at what we get in Social Security and what we have in our IRAs, We have definitely done better than my parents.
Agree. Plus, the previous generation, which included so many retirees in stable careers and retirements, didn't seem (in my middle-class circle anyway) to have high-flying expectations in retirement years. One uncle, who did not go to college but went to "night school" to learn drafting right out of the army , earned a top living with a well-known company right away, and he retired with a pension nearly equal to what he had made, plus a $100K retirement bonus (some 35? years ago). Even he, who was relatively wealthy in the day, lived simply in the same small house with a modest vacation here and there. He, like many of his kind in his generation, would never have been out eating at restaurants and drinking at high-end bars. We kids had to weed his vegetable garden every summer.
It hasn't ever been 'established'. There is still no one agreed-upon range for Boomers.
That only complicates the observation fo whether one generation is going to be better off than another generation.
The Baby Boom began after WWII, not during the war.
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