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.

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