Social Security: Don't Fear the Boomers

By Richard Eskow

Created 08/07/2010 - 1:22pm

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They're too old to rock and roll, too young to ... ruin Social Security. Despite the scaremongers' attempts to incite generational war, people born between 1946 and 1964 are not going to destroy the Social Security system. The Baby Boom cohort isn't going to be a crippling financial burden for Generation X, Generation Y, Generation XYY, or any other generation. It may be true that their descendants will be forced to listen to their greatest hits until the sun goes supernova (more cowbell, please!), but economically there's nothing to worry about.

Since I'm one of the dreaded boomers myself I guess I can't be considered objective, so don't take my word for it. Ask an actuary.

Harry C. Ballantyne's biography demonstrates that he's the nation's leading expert in forecasting Social Security trends. His career includes eighteen years as the Chief Actuary for the Social Security Administration (under Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton) and a degree in Physics - but no time whatsoever as the bass player for Jethro Tull. Actuarial certification is extremely hard to receive, and those guys know their stuff. (I know because when I was a young Boomer and numbers guy, my boss offered to finance my actuarial training. But I had small children at home, you gotta take a lot of really hard exams, yada yada yada ... you know how flightly these boomers are.)

What does Harry C. Ballantyne says about all the generational fear being whipped up today? A new report [1]released yesterday by the Economic Policy Institute [2](EPI), co-authored by Ballantyne with EPI President Lawrence Mishel and economist Monique Morrissey, explains: "Social Security is running a surplus of $77 billion this year and amassing a trust fund large enough to last through the peak retirement years of the Baby Boomers."