Talking Points
Baby boomers: Now eligible for Social Security
Meet Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, “Public Enemy No. 1,” said Dana Milbank
in The Washington Post. “Her offense? Being born.” Casey-Kirschling, you see, is generally recognized as being the nation’s first baby boomer, having been born just after midnight on Jan. 1, 1946. And this week, the retired New Jersey schoolteacher signed up for Social Security benefits—a generational first that could mark the moment the U.S. officially began to go bankrupt. That’s because Casey-Kirschling will be the first of some 80 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 to turn 62 and start clamoring for their monthly retirement benefits. Without radical reform, Social Security will go into the red in 2017, on its way to insolvency.
“I’m blessed to be able to take my Social Security now,” Casey-Kirschling said. “I’m lucky to be at the top of the boom.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
This is one baby boomer milestone we’d be wise not to ignore, said Liz Taylor in The Seattle Times. Yes, boomers tend to find their journey
through life endlessly fascinating. But the fact is, we’re on the cusp of a “demographic tsunami” of historic proportions. It’s a matter of simple math,
said the St. Petersburg, Fla., Times in an editorial.
At the end of World War II, 42 workers were paying into the system for each retiree drawing funds out. Today, the ratio is three workers per
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
retiree. In a couple of decades, boomer retirements will make the ratio two-to-one. Saving Social Security actually isn’t that complicated: We’ll need some combination of raising the retirement age, cutting benefits, and increasing payroll taxes. But try finding a politician willing to support any of those necessary reforms.
As a card-carrying baby boomer, said Mark Patinkin in The Providence Journal, all this Social Security talk is bumming me out. It’s not
the system’s looming insolvency that’s getting to me, but rather the fact that I’m actually of an age at which I need to care. Like many of my
generational cohort, “I still, illogically, see myself as part of the youth culture.” But I can no longer deny the obvious. My first big jolt came recently when I saw a commercial for a retirement plan featuring Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” playing in the background. That’s right:
The ultimate ’60s drug anthem is being used to sell 401(k)s. Now comes the shocking news that a fellow boomer is actually going on Social Security. It’s official: We’re getting old.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
The CIA is openly recruiting foreign spies in other countries
In the Spotlight The agency is posting instructions in multiple languages for people to contact them
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
'People want to understand food — but only to a point'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Justin Klawans, The Week US Published
-
How do cash-back apps work and are they worth it?
The Explainer Put a percentage of the amount you spend back in your pocket
By Becca Stanek, The Week US Published