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.

People will inherit it, buy it, and live in it. Demographics is not a zero-sum equation. We have immigration, for a start, and people’s living patterns are changing — many more single people living alone; many more divorced couples and blended families; more gay couples, more gay couples with children etc etc.

It’s almost like nobody else is going to get old, need healthcare, claim state pension after the baby boomers have shuffled off !!

Of course. That’s why governments encourage it.

FFS are people really this obtuse?

Unfortunately.

In seriousness, as someone who lives in Australia too:

I think that boomers who have 2-3 kids, their kids will not want to sell the family home, because they won't be able to afford outright a comparable home on half the equity. So they'll rent it out and leverage against (their share of) it. Aka less houses on the market, and more upward drivers to house prices.

I think public health is such a mess that there will be a huge contraction and probably a generation or two before it's sorted.

I am also hugely worried about the shrinking middle class (in economic terms) and return to enormous wealth for the very few, as society used to be pre 20th century. I hope that can be corrected. But I am not holding my breath.

Climate change is the area I am most fascinated by- will our generation, who has been brought up on the looming danger, choose a 'head in the sand' approach in public policy and economy, as the generations before have? (I'm not talking bringing your own shopping bags; I'm talking appropriate taxation to non-renewable energy extractors, etc). I'd like to think not- yet the lure of big lobby interests has overcome any serious political appetite for change yet, there's no reason it won't happen the same for us. It's easy for generations to be high minded about what they'll do with power, before they have it.

When you refer to low birth rate you need to consider that the birth rate is high in some people groups, low in others. The groups with the higher birth rates will make up the bigger part of society in the long run. The face of society will change hugely. Immigration and these groups with higher birth rates will mean that the population doesn't have the big drop anticipated so much. My opinion anyway.

I agree. Most of the 70+ people today were a lot fitter and healthier when young, hence why they live so long. Look at todays youngsters and it seems at least half are severely overweight if not obese. That's the next health time bomb - they won't live as long, but they'll still need medical care etc for heart disease, diabetes, hip/joint replacements, etc., and probably a sizeable proportion will end up needing care of going into homes at an earlier age.

Baby boomer has been the term for the well, baby boomer genre generation since little child me first read an article on the looming demographic change in Time magazine, sometime in the early 1980s.

If I used “OK boomer” that would be a slur. But I used the commonly recognised neutral term for people born post war to the mid-1960s.

*Your parents (unless they are currently higher rate tax payers) and the majority of people will never pay enough tax in their life to make up for pensions and healthcare costs.

You need to earn 41k a year to be a net contributor.*

It's way more than that. The average cost per citizen across the 4 nations is £16k per year (£15k in England to £17.9k in NI). That equates to a salary of around £63k.

Any family of 4 will have net benefits of around £64k per year, meaning each parent has to earn about £100k for the family to be net contributors. If only one parent works, it's about £160k.

Very few people are net contributors as a family unit.

Society plans, evaluates and adapts, dependent on circumstance.

For example, I work with schools now. The birth rate has dropped, rural areas have expensive housing and lots of second homes. Strategic council planning is closing schools that are not viable with government approval. ( whilst at the same time under political direction and ideology the conservative government insisted on wasting money opening new free, academy schools).

The process will be the same in the future, evaluation and planning to meet society need.

There isn't a cut off between 59 and 60, things will be similar for present 50 year olds and 60 year olds

I think we’ve peaked in uk life expectancy

Healthy life expectancy hasn’t increased in years & there is quite a large difference in life expectancy now depending where you live in the country.

Just as challenging, is the number of working age adults, ie: younger than baby boomers, who now need extra support. Not a judgement, but something that I think is also being kicked down the road.

It's the other elephant in the room. More babies with disabilities surviving, more children with ND who need additional help. The post Covid cohort of all ages with many continuing health or mental health problems.

So the boomers may not be as expensive as following generations, despite being larger in numbers.

Then you don't understand the term. What would you call your generation then? What's a non-offensive term that covers the generation between the silent generation and gen x according to you?

"Your parents (unless they are currently higher rate tax payers) and the majority of people will never pay enough tax in their life to make up for pensions and healthcare costs.
You need to earn 41k a year to be a net contributor."

This is simply not true, and is based on the false assumption that the only taxes individuals pay are income tax and National Insurance. There are numerous other taxes that people pay that find their way into the Treasury and thus pay for pensions, healthcare and much more (defence, policing, roads and infrastructure, education ...)

Every time you buy a bottle of wine in Tesco, something like two-thirds of the retail price is tax and alcohol duty. A £10 bottle contains less than £1-worth of wine. If Tesco makes a profit on the wine (and everything else they sell) they pay Corporation Tax on that profit. Then the shareholders pay tax on the dividends that they receive from Tesco.

Fill up the car with petrol and over 90% of the retail price is tax and fuel duty.

Employees working in industry also indirectly contribute to the tax revenue. The products that they produce generate VAT when sold; the employers pay Corporation Tax on profits; employers pay National Insurance.

We boomers can't answer your question as we'll be DEAD.

Both higher rate tax payers here….me personally been a higher rate tax payer since I started work, 2003, finance…..pay for private health care, school fees and will pay for care homes - if live that long.

Will be high rate tax payers in retirement as well….. sadly - get zero from state. Feel slightly aggrieved re. Healthcare, controversially would privatise the NHS, the amount we spend on healthcare is eye watering - but thank goodness we have it to spend. Cannot imagine how dire life would be if you didn’t have it, in a developed country it’s deplorable how people with the condition my husband has live, if they don’t have the ££££££. (Am talking 50/60 k a year on medical bills).

This!

Well what do you think will happen? use your imagination
All services run.by volunteers will collapse and people will be more reliant on the state to pick up the slack . But it won't in all reality do that and people will flounder. Some will inherit and be better off and others won't and will be dependant on benefits ro support them and pay their rent as they age. I think.it is a bleak outlook personally.
So what are your thoughts?

And if current society is anything to go by, looking at teens, mental health services.

And the impact of drug use in adults.

Less childcare around?

@LargeSquareRock

If you had read my OP and my PPs you would understand that this post is not about baby boomers. It’s about how society will deal with things after a society geared to support elderly baby boomers doesn’t need to support elderly baby boomers anymore. Because they have died. Just like generation x me will die.

From where I'm sitting, having worked my whole life, still a tax payer and fully self sufficient I find your idea that the younger generation are a benevolent lot providing for me rather offensive.

Geared up to support my arse.

The youth of the time will have to come up with a replacement for “ok boomer”…maybe “ok Xer”?

There are so many factors to consider. I am Generation X and know lots of people without their own home. They are renting but a high proportion of renters will not get enough pension to cover their rent in the future so will need benefits to cover it. Private pensions did not become law until half way through this generation's working life, so a lot of people only have a small pension that won't be enough to pay extortionate rents.

My mum's friends seem to have a lot more money than people my age, although she doesn't, so like any generation it's not clear cut. Also, there is a growing number of working people on universal credit, who don't pay any tax and need help, and too many jobs advertised that do not paid well enough. As well as the fact that not enough people want to do care work and so we will need immigration and they will have to live somewhere.

My parents are early 80s and not Boomers, and I don't think of them as particularly old yet. Boomers are not old, so it will be a long time before this situation arises!

We boomers can't answer your question as we'll be DEAD

But you’re not DEAD now so surely you can have an opinion or view on what the future may look like? Otherwise why bother commenting on the thread in the first place?