Planning for Life

By Harry S. Margolis

The future of most members of the Baby Boomer generation portends poorly. They have not escaped the income and wealth inequality experienced by the rest of the U.S. population and, as a result, most will have insufficient resources to fund their later years, especially if they fall ill.

According to a study recently released by Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies, the annual income the top 10% of earners over 65 has grown 55% in constant dollars over the last 30 years. That of the bottom 10% has grown 11%. The income of the median senior in the United States has grown 40% over the same period of time $31,000 to $41,000 a year (in constant 2017 dollars)

According to Stanford Professor Laura L. Carstensen, the 20th century bequeathed us a fabulous gift:  an average of 30 more years of life!  Life expectancy at birth is now 78, whereas in the early 1900s it was only about 50.  Today there are more than 70,000 centenarians in the U.S., roughly four times the number there were just ten years ago.  We need to think about those extra decades, and how we want to spend them (and how we plan to afford them). 

By Harry S. Margolis

For most people, putting off estate planning until they're older does not present a problem. The odds are that they'll be alive and healthy for the foreseeable future. But for Baby Boomers, these odds are changing rapidly.

I developed the following (somewhat morbid) table from Social Security Administration actuarial data (https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html) to reflect the chances of dying in any 10-year period. As you can see, it is quite small before age 50, especially for women, but then increases dramatically, essentially doubling each decade.

By Harry S. Margolis

What estate planning documents do you need and by when do you need them? Brooklyn elder law and estate planning attorney Judith D. Grimaldi along with her co-author, Joanne Seminara, answer this question in their new book, 5@55: The 5 Essential Documents You Need by Age 55. They make the case that for baby boomers, now's the time.

By Harry S. Margolis

Baby boomers, those born between 1946 and 1964, aged now between 51 and 69, are retiring in droves, 10,000 a day by one measure, and will continue to do so for the next two decades. Unfortunately, neither they nor our national economy can afford this. The economy needs skilled and experienced workers, even if some may not be totally up-to-speed on the latest social media phenomena. And few baby boomers have sufficient savings to see themselves through a long retirement. Those savings are more important than ever since very few baby boomer retirees will have pensions.

By Harry S. Margolis

Years ago, I interviewed Dr. Robert Butler, the father of gerontology, for a podcast series I had at the time. With complete self-interest, I asked how he thought Baby Boomers would fare as they aged, fully expecting a bright future as the result of our athleticism and the benefits of good health care. I was surprised at his response that Baby Boomers as a group could look forward to a miserable old age due to obesity.