What happens when the baby boomers die?

[LargeSquareRock]

Sorry about the title, but that’s literally it. I’ve wondered this since I was a child.

Obviously we are about to enter a 20 year spike when a smaller number of tax payers support a higher number of elderly people in healthcare and elder care.

What happens in 20 years when the spike is over? Do we have empty care homes, plentiful housing and easily available health care?

I really have no evil agenda asking this- demographics has always fascinated me.

Self driving cars will be normal
I'm not so sure about this, unless it's a form of public transport that feels like a self-driving car 🤷🏻‍♀️

It's more than 20 years. The biggest group in the uk is millenials so who ever comes after them is also facing a problem.

Japan is interesting - I believe their older house tend not to hold value and they don't use immigration as much. They have many abandoned houses - think they get called witch houses. Plus young want to be in the cities not rural.

Italy - there are many villages there with older populations that look like they will die out - older population left behind and young want cities.

There's a tenancy with retirement in UK to want to move more rural - often to areas with poorer services - so not sure we'll see the same patterns - not so much static population left behind as importing older population to coast and rural locations that are considered desirable - often results is house prices increasing and pricing younger populations out.

I’m flattered you call them calculations ;) At best they are guesstimates, and are all in ‘todays’ money

As say, there are too many variables to do any more, but I’d be pretty comfortable guessing that you have to earn at least 2 or 3 times the average salary for your entire working life to be a net contributor over your lifetime. I’m not sure absolute tax rates make too much difference, as they broadly reflect the spending levels at the time anyway.

Which, when you think about it properly, is completely ridiculous!

Part of the problem is that half a million pounds sounds a lot, but it doesn’t buy a big property in much of the SE.

When people talk about ‘soaking millionaires’ they don’t ever think that’s their children in 2054, living in their modest £220,000 home that they bought in 2024…

I'm a boomer and DS was born in the 90s, I was mid 30s, a lot of people had children when they were over 30

Plenty of people who’ve always done the right things, including my FiL, still get dementia!

IMO a lot of it is down to luck and genes - and having seen more than enough of it in this family I do hate it when people* try to imply that if only people had led healthier lives, they wouldn’t have got it.

*particularly a PITA, sanctimonious, know-it-all aunt of mine!

Very important point upthread about how you need to earn 41k + to be a net contributor. I wish this was more widely understood.
Of course there are many ways to contribute to society, e.g someone could do important work thier whole lives, but earn less than that.
That's the idea of taxation.

But don't know why people here are referring to those who do / don't pay tax. You can't eat without paying tax. Its 20% of most of your food shop.

I belong to the somewhat hated "boomer" demographic. I pay income tax, I have in fact paid income tax for over 50 years, I pay full council tax (minus the 25% discount that all single people get regardless of age) . Guess my little inner city two up two down will be sold when I die and my adult child will have the money. It will be bought by a BTL slum landlord who will turn it into an unofficial HMO so that will house loads of people! TBH I hope I die in the next few years, I have no desire to live into my 80's , money is tight as the cost of living crisis has hit me hard and I am on a fixed income. Health is good but I am aware that this can change suddenly and I do not want to be a drain on all you young people

A lot of the older houses will lose value anyway as they can't easily be brought up to the new green standards that will no doubt be brought in so will be un mortgageable, I'm fully expecting ours to fall into this category.

This ....no general comment as I am not economically educated enough to have a credible opinion but this comment resonates. So many baby boomers (and the silent generation before them) seem/seemed so much more prepared to do 'something for nothing' and/or 'something for someone else' then any subsequent generation

We didn't even have VAT in the 60s or early 70s. We did have purchase tax which I think was over 30% but on fewer goods than VAT.

Lots of things change for good or ill, when I had my eldest child there was no family allowance (child benefit) for the first child, there were no tax credits, no funded nursery places, to be honest there weren't many nurseries in the 70s. There certainly wasn't equal pay, I worked in an office and the men were literally being paid double what the women were paid, they split the job in two but both halves were the same sort of work but they justified it as the men's work was different! On the other hand there was a lot more social housing, the NHS was in better shape although of course some treatments available now weren't known back then. Houses were cheaper but the interest rate was high. Higher education was better funded but for fewer people.

Swings and roundabouts. Generally I wouldn't want to go back to the 50s.

I think we are heading towards a split society. The children of those boomers who accumulated wealth and didn't lose it to care homes will become the 'haves'. The children of those that didn't will become the 'have nots' . The generations trend will continue wit h the rich making monet off the backs of the poor as has happened for centuries, but it will become more pronounced as the property owning/ landlord class exploit those who never inherited property or capital and spend a lifetime working for poor pay renting at high costs to further line the pockets of the 'haves'

My mistake I should have put 'best chance of prevention' not 'prevention'.
The outcome will always be a result of the interaction of luck/genetic predisposition with lifestyle. The only thing that you can control is lifestyle so it makes sense to do what you can.

One can contribute to society in ways which aren't just financial and so it's a shame that we tend to only measure people's contributions in terms of money.
People do essential jobs for low wages, their work enables others to do work for which they are highly paid.

Boomer here. I’m single and own my own home which along with savings means I will leave an inheritance of around £330,000 (at current values) to my 2 children which I expect they will either invest to ensure they have a comfortable retirement or pay off their own mortgages early and live a more comfortable life earlier. All based on current legislation and assuming I don’t have to sell the house for care costs. Like me I think a lot of boomers will be passing on wealth to their children which should have some impact on the economy. My kids are millennials

You are one person, not the majority of people though. With 4 children you are an outlier, the average has been less than 2 since the 70s.

If everyone was like you we wouldn’t have this problem. But they’re not so here we are.

It’s always complicated 😁 I don’t even get the old basic. SAHMs didn’t get NI credits when my DC were small, so I had some years with no contributions. I also paid ‘Married Women’s’ stamp when I was a low paid, part time and temporary worker. Affordability. Then I got a decent job with a pension scheme, so I joined. My state pension is just over £100. If I hadn’t joined a pension scheme, a) I’d have had more disposable income when we were younger and struggling, and b) I’d be getting Pension Credit, Council Tax Benefit, Winter Fuel Allowance, free TV licence etc.

I, like so many others, tried to do the best I could for my future, and now I’m
only marginally better off than if I’d not bothered. Complicated indeed.

In this last election my local council could not guarantee me a postal vote would arrive in time before I went on holiday as we went on the Friday two weeks before the election. I had to arrange a proxy vote, but I was a little bit uncomfortable doing that to be honest.
But yes, voting is very important. However no government is going to stop altogether provision of health services or care to elderly people who need it, and young people will need to remember that they won't be young forever.
It's all very well saying stop the state pension or tax the state pension but if that is all you've got, it won't provide housing and utility bills and food, the basics of human needs. So who is going to pay for these basics?
My own preference is to increase IHT so that more than 4% of people pay it and I cannot understand why CGT is so low compared to income tax - maximum os 24% or 28% compared with 45% when it is likely that those having capital gains are probably also paying top rate tax. There is scope within the tax system to make some changes to bring in more money that does not affect most of the people who rarely pay these taxes.

Lots of us boomers started work at 15 as I did

Im an older millennial who started paying NI since 17 due to my Saturday job & continued through p/t work at uni. I don’t think I’m unusual, you really didn’t have to earn much to qualify for a contribution back then.

Because they are retired and because many of them had the option to have one parent at home when their children were growing up.

How do you expect millennials and Gen X to work full time, look after their children, look after their elderly parents and then volunteer?

When we are retired, our children are grown up and our parents have passed on, we will also volunteer.

That, of course, will remain to be seen

Quite. It's often claimed that just more people is the answer, but would they be net contributors? That's the point.

Quite a lot of people earn more than £41K a year!

baby boomers are not in their 80s or 90s, they are younger than that.

🤣 that’s exactly what I was thinking, I’m 58 & hope Ive got more than 12 yrs left in me !