Surviving Without So Many Working Boomers

Baby Boomers have pumped up the global economy with their profligate ways for nearly two decades, according to The Wall Street Journal. It’s been a great party. Now the music’s over.

Generalizations about the 79 million people born between 1946 and 1964 are overdone and easy to debunk. Boomers went to Woodstock, voted for George McGovern and, so the thinking goes, cared deeply about the Rolling Stones. Boomers also helped put Ronald Reagan and fellow Boomer George W. Bush in the White House and turned Nashville into a cultural capital.

But what Baby Boomers of all persuasions have done, without dispute and to an unprecedented degree, is spend money instead of saving it. During the 1990s, Baby Boomers accounted for about half of all consumer spending in the U.S., according to a recent McKinsey Global Institute study.

Here’s the whole story.

Tags: Economy, Retiring Boomers

Category: Baby Boomers, Career & Work