Saying Goodbye to the Most Impactful and Consequential of All the Generations
By Rick MoranWe were originally referred to as "baby boomers," the generation born in the immediate aftermath of World War II. From 1946 to 1964, the U.S. Census Bureau tells us that more than 76 million babies were born.
Why 1964 as a cutoff point? That's the year that the birth control pill was introduced in the U.S., and the birth rate began to decline.
Today, we're simply referred to as "Boomers." We grew up in a period of massive wealth creation, painful social change, and the specter of nuclear annihilation hanging over our heads. All of that impacted our worldview and led to a mixed record of accomplishments on the economy, social change, and America's standing in the world.
Over the next 20 years, most Boomers will exit the stage of history. Someone else will chronicle our successes and failures. What should concern all of us is the coming crisis when what's left of the 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 retire, sicken, and die.
"Sleepwalk into this era and we’re looking at decades of gerontocratic drift, fiscal implosion, and a younger generation that inherits a country stripped of the investments it needed," writes Jeff Giesea in The Free Press. "Get ahead of it, and we have a genuine shot at renewal. Almost no one is treating it as the civilizational reckoning it is."
Think of the 1990s, when we said goodbye to "The Greatest Generation." They had fought a world war and vanquished two of the most powerful armies that ever existed. They created modern industrialized America that bestrode the world like a colossus, an economic power that dominated the world. Shaped by the Depression and a unifying national crusade, they were at the forefront of a technological revolution. When they exited the stage, it was with the gratitude of most Americans.
"The Boomer Farewell," as Geisea refers to it, will not be vouchsafed such admiration or plaudits.
Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are wealthier and healthier than any generation before them, deeply embedded in political, economic, and cultural power, and often understandably reluctant to step aside. They control 52 percent of U.S. household wealth, 40 percent of real estate value, and the majority of top political offices. Social Security and Medicare, which primarily benefit them, consume 40 percent of the federal budget. Twenty-four members of Congress are over 80. Harrison Ford is still carrying franchises.
More fundamentally, the conditions for achieving closure no longer exist. The Greatest Generation’s departure unfolded inside a still-confident, still-cohesive America with solid institutions and younger leaders waiting in the wings. This farewell is happening inside a more fractured society simultaneously grappling with an AI revolution, geopolitical disorder, and a fiscal structure built for 1930s demographics. There is no Brokaw waiting to write the tribute. There may not even be a shared narrative to write.
What there will be is enormous, grinding, multi-decade stress. America is just beginning to reckon with it.
"Within five years, America will have more people over 65 than under 18," Giesea notes. "The worker-to-retiree ratio has collapsed from 5 to 1 in 1960 to about 2.5 today."
Nearly 70 percent of people over 65 will need long-term care. Either we'll have to warehouse these people or hire millions of in-home workers. It costs $70,000 a year for a home health aide, $132,000 for a private room in a nursing home.
We're running a two-trillion-dollar budget deficit; the national debt is already over $40 trillion; Congress is frozen; and since 2009, the presidency has become more like an executive regent instead of an elected official. We're not facing up to this crisis because it's easier to bury our heads in the sand and pretend that, because we're America, we can solve our problems by wishing them away.
Most people think of eldercare as a private family matter, but it’s a macro political force that will complicate our politics. Want to enforce the border? Fine, but what happens when the Venezuelan woman caring for your mom who has Alzheimer disease gets deported? Concerned about the national debt? Medicare and Social Security already make up 40 percent of spending, and the boomer retirement wave hasn’t crested. Older Americans vote at a much higher rate than younger ones. Every political incentive points toward shifting the burden to younger generations, including mine and my son’s.
The political outcome I’m most worried about is what I call gerontocratic capture: a structural inability to invest in the future because the political math always rewards the old. It shows up in housing, where NIMBY policies and property-tax protections suppress new construction to protect existing homeowners’ asset values. It shows up in fiscal policy, where every conversation about entitlement reform dies in committee. It shows up in cities designed around retirees instead of young families.
Giesea refers to his generation (Millennials) as "the sandwich generation," because they're "caught between worrying about their elderly parents and young kids, with a fiscal system designed for a world that no longer exists."
"We’re juggling time, money, and emotional reserves between our kids, elders, and ourselves," Giesea writes. "The entire country is doing the same, and no one seems to talk about it."
There is no solution, because Boomers will hold on to their power and money for as long as they are alive. That means no entitlement reform. This is especially true, as Democrats prove every time entitlement reform is mentioned, as reform is used as a political weapon to terrify the old.
The "Long Goodbye" for Boomers is going to be messy and could end up ending the United States as we know it. Perhaps the prospect of being hanged will "focus the mind wonderfully," as Samuel Johnson, the compiler of the first English language dictionary, said.
Don't count on it.
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