Baby Boomers' Luck Is Running Out

[Celerity]

After a lifetime of good fortune, the generation has become vulnerable at exactly the wrong moment.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2025/06/baby-boomers-aging-trump/683150/

https://archive.ph/3Ntke



At the core of every joke about Baby Boomers lies a seed of jealousy. Unlike younger generations, they have largely been able to walk a straightforward path toward prosperity, security, and power. They were born in an era of unprecedented economic growth and stability. College was affordable, and they graduated in a thriving job market. They were the first generation to reap the full benefits of a golden age of medical innovations: birth control, robotic surgery, the mapping of the human genome, effective cancer treatments, Ozempic.

But recent policy changes are poised to make life significantly harder for Baby Boomers. “If you’re in your 60s or 70s, what the Trump administration has done means more insecurity for your assets in your 401(k), more insecurity about sources of long-term care, and, for the first time, insecurity about your Social Security benefits,” Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist at the New School, told me. “It’s a triple threat.” After more than half a century of aging into political and economic trends that worked to their benefit, the generation has become particularly vulnerable at exactly the wrong moment in history.

Perhaps the biggest threat to Boomers in the second Trump administration is an overhaul of Social Security, which provides benefits to nearly nine out of 10 Americans ages 65 and older. In an emailed statement, Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano wrote, “I am fully committed to upholding President Trump’s promise to protect and strengthen Social Security. Beneficiaries can be confident that their benefits are secure.” But in February, DOGE announced plans to cut Social Security staff by about 12 percent and close six of its 10 regional offices; a quarter of the agency’s IT staff has quit or been fired. Social Security’s long-term outlook was already troubled before Trump, and these drastic reductions make the understaffed agency even less equipped to support those who rely on it. Shutting down field offices means seniors can’t get help in person; less staffing means longer wait times when they call and more frequent website crashes. “When you add hurdles, or cause a slowdown in terms of processing claims, you see losses in terms of benefits,” Monique Morrissey, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told me. In fact, shutdowns of field offices during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic corresponded with decreased enrollment in both Social Security and Social Security Disability Insurance, which is available to Americans under 65 who can no longer work for physical or mental reasons.

Social Security cuts will most hurt low-income Boomers, who are the likeliest to rely on benefits to cover their whole cost of living. But even those with more financial assets may depend on Social Security as a safety net. “It’s important to understand that many seniors, even upper-income seniors, are just one shock away from falling into poverty,” says Nancy J. Altman, the president of Social Security Works, an organization that advocates for expanding the program. As a whole, seniors have more medical needs and less income than the general population, so they’re much more financially vulnerable. If you’re comfortably middle-class in your early 60s, at the height of your earning potential, that’s no guarantee that you’ll remain comfortably middle-class into your 70s. In the next few years, Boomers who face more medical bills as they stop working might find, for the first time in their life, that they can’t easily afford them.

snip

[yourout]

1. And too damn many of us voted for it.

Not me of course but far too many of my generation did.

[GenThePerservering]

2. That article paints an absurdly rosy picture

of Boomer years. It overlooks Vietnam and the heartache of that, the struggle for those gains for women, the fact that the 70s and early 80s were just shit for a lot of women, with old attitudes still hanging on in the work place, the fact that at least in my era (later Boomer), our generation was so big because the previous generation bred their brains out, that it was in fact a fight to get a well paying job. GenX olde fartes also reaped the same benefits, BTW. AND, many of us paid into the system for 50 years or so, it wasn't just 'given' to us.

Yes, there were many good things, affordable college being a big one, but let's be real - the past always looks great if people keep those rose-coloured glasses on.

Let's look to the future, instead.

[thucythucy]

8. There was also AIDS, which the Reagan administration handled

about as well as Trump handled Covid, even worse in some ways. The gay community was devastated--also the community of people with hemophilia.

And then too the struggles of disabled people to escape the institutions built by older generations. They literally had to conceive of and build independent living options from the ground up.

And I would love to see this writer explain how Black Americans had so much wonderful opportunity just handed to them.

If Social Security is threatened now it's in large part because of all the boomer bashing the media has been pushing now for years.

Divide and conquer has always been how oligarchs get their way.

[Hekate]

15. Thank you for your post, thucythucy

Gods, I get sick of the boomer bashing.

[Hekate]

13. Reminds me so much of my parental generation's spokesmen calling us spoiled brats...

…even as young men were drafted against their will and sent to be slaughtered in Vietnam.

All along the way, all my life, my generation has been blamed for being numerous and somehow entitled. It gets effing old.

And now that we are genuinely old, worried about our health (good luck) — having raised our kids & still funneling money in that direction & to our grandchildren, and by the way having helped out our parents — we have to put up with this whining that we are numerous and somehow entitled.

Thank you for your post, GenThePersevering.

[Littlered]

3. Huh?

Fwiw, I just recently applied for my ss benefits, fear mongering articles like this one had assured I might never get approved in my lifetime. That was hardly the case. The time frame of my (on-line) filing until my first deposit was three weeks three days. No issues and my benefit actually came out a few bucks higher than the estimate.

I keep reading about all these cuts. I bet I have wasted over 20 hours of my life (probably way more) scouring articles that talk about cuts. Yet when I study them, I never see anything about actual tangible cuts, it’s just endless verbiage about stuff that isn’t even remotely related. At this point, I have pretty much tuned out.

[Celerity]

4. this article did not say what you claimed

you said

fear mongering articles like this one had assured I might never get approved in my lifetime

that is a false claim

[Littlered]

6. I believe the keywords were

Last edited Sun Jun 15, 2025, 11:15 PM - Edit history (2)

“Like this one’.” Meaning the articles share a common thread. They are fear mongering about something that are in no way supported by any TANGIBLE evidence. If it isn’t baseless fear mongering, please enlighten. I just parsed it looking for FACTS as I’ve got to head out the door shortly.

[getagrip_already]

5. Luck? We MADE the economic wave we rode...

What have subsequent generations done in comparrison?

You built billionaires and lazy workers.

Jeolous much? (Aimed at the atlantic, not anyone here).!

[J_William_Ryan]

7. "...and they graduated in a thriving job market."

Not to nitpick, but that’s not true for baby boomers coming of age/graduating from college in the 70s – the era of stagflation, recession, and high unemployment.

Otherwise, yes – Republicans (not just Trump) are making things needlessly difficult for everyone receiving Social Security.

[Captain Zero]

9. True. Tough to get a decent job in '75

Gas shocks going on too. And high inflation.

[JanMichael]

10. Gen X welcomes you with open arms.

Actually I thought that Gen X would FINALLY win one at the end. I figured that climate change and the AI take over would be in full swing when I was over 80 or 90. Over that even so I could drift off into the abyss and possibly not even know it. Most of us would be dead anyway. I would be 100 in 2068.

So much for that pipe dream.

[NickB79]

11. Wait until the potential Medicaid cuts hit retirement facilities

The oldest batch of Boomers are in their 70's and 80's. A LOT of retirement homes are going to close in the next few years if the Big Beautiful Bill passes, because Medicaid pays for a substantial portion of their bills, and the residents will end up forced to live with any family member who will take them in.

That, or die on the streets.

[Hekate]

14. I'm sure the younger generations will just be so accommodating to having Papa & Nana move in...

…with all their abundant end of life medical needs.

[617Blue]

12. Luck runs out? No Assmouth happens.