I don't know if you've noticed this, but everybody is getting old this year. A record number of people will be turning 65, and the next year that record will be broken again. We have been warned about aging populations for decades now, and now it's actually happening. Unfortunately, the savings retirement gap for millions of households is wider than it has ever been, and people's assets have been eaten up by inflation, bad investments, and good old-fashioned financial illiteracy. Over 20% of the people on the cusp of retirement have no savings at all, but that isn't stopping them. Millions of people across the world can't afford to retire, and they're doing it anyway. So what the does this mean for everybody else? Baby boomers leaving their homes either because they're moving to assisted living centers or they're just no longer living. In the last 10 years, Milwaukee County saw a 22% increase of older residents. In their 50s are generally at peak earning potential, yet more than half worry they'll run out.

of money in retirement. Is this the retirement that you imagined? No, no. Earlier this year, the Retirement Income Institute released a commissioned study on retirement savings, and I can't overemphasize how much I love the name of this report: Peak Boomers Impact Study. It found that between this year and 2030, 30 million Americans will retire, representing almost a fifth of the total labor force. The study focused primarily on how those retirees plan to fund their retirement, and the results were grim. More than half of the study group had less than $250,000 in assets, including their home, if they had one, and that group would rely on Social Security as their primary or exclusive source of income in retirement. Now, this study was conducted by independent researchers, but it was funded by a group that wants to sell annuities to people planning their retirement, so some of their recommendations need to be taken with more than a bucket of salt. However, the study group of retirees getting too old to work are just one part of the larger

group deciding that right now is a pretty good time to retire. A study by Pew Research has found that the largest wave of retirement has already happened as people step back from the workforce during COVID-19, assisted by a combination of record low interest rates, generous stimulus measures, redundancy packages, record asset prices, and a general motivation to not go back into a plague-infested office. This is far from a uniquely American trend; in fact, we are actually behind a lot of countries that are both older than us and have better support systems for people in their old age. On top of hitting peak rumor, there are less typical retirees: a growing number of independently wealthy young people who are pursuing financial independence, where investment returns from their assets are enough to fund their lifestyle indefinitely. And on the other end of the spectrum, there are people just giving up on working and are scraping by on family support, government assistance, or jobs in the informal economy. These people aren't the typical demographic of retirees, but they are still adding to the record trend and

they are all paying for this major financial decision in slightly different ways. The first way is that they just aren't. People don't always make entirely rational financial decisions, whether it's buying a car in an 84-month finance deal, racking up credit card debt to buy luxury goods, or just not understanding the importance of saving and investing. There is no shortage of people doing really dumb things with their money. You are watching a channel that gives weekly depressing lectures on the state of the financial system, business trends, and the economy, so all of you are probably far more financially literate than the average person. And even then, you have probably made some dumb money mistakes. People deciding to quit their jobs often aren't thinking entirely rationally, and more people are just as setting that if they are going to be screwed financially in their old age, they would at least like to enjoy a few years while they still have their health and worry about finances once they are too old for it to be their problem. For some people, the decision is made for them: layoffs.

Nationwide has hit people approaching retirement age particularly hard. According to a survey conducted by the Trans America Center for Retirement Studies, most Americans are retiring 5 years earlier than they expected. While this sounds like it's giving people more years to enjoy themselves, the reality is that it's giving people fewer years to save and more years to cover, and this is almost entirely involuntary. According to a study published by ProPublica, since 2016, 56% of workers over the age of 50 lost their job involuntarily, meaning they either got fired, made redundant, or laid off. Now, that might not sound too bad, but you have to remember that a lot of people over the age of 50 are choosing to leave their job because they are retiring on their own terms. So, the majority being let go is pushing a lot of people out of work. Once they are out, older people are finding it much harder to find a job, especially ones that pay as well as the jobs they were laid off from. Companies don't want to hire older people because

They think that they can't use computers. They aren't going to be able to do physical work for as long as young workers in non-office jobs. And there is the not-so-secret reality that older workers are normally less easy to take advantage of than younger workers with their whole career ahead of them. It's technically not legal to discriminate against workers over the age of 40, although this law does not protect against discriminating against people under the age of 40. But that's a whole separate issue. It doesn't matter anyway because any half-competent hiring manager or human resources department could find a reason for hiring a young worker instead of an over-50 worker. And this all means the same thing: if people lose their jobs over the age of 50, they are almost forced into retirement, whether they can afford it or not. So, it's time to learn how money works to find out what this means for everybody else supporting a growing group of people who can't support themselves. This week's lesson is sponsored by CookUnity.

here's how it usually works: potential sponsors reach out to me. I try their product and then decide if I want to work with them. This time, though, it's a little different. I've actually been using Cook Unity for a while now, and I loved it so much that I was excited to partner with them. Cook Unity makes it easy and effortless. You can pick a subscription plan and choose from hundreds of meals each week, all crafted by award-winning chefs. Don't have time to choose? No worries. Cook Unity can curate meals based on your preferences. Cook Unity's roster of All-Star chefs includes Food Network alums, James Beard award winners, and acclaimed restaurateurs. Their meals come fully cooked, so you just heat them up. You can choose between 4 to 16 meals per week, and the plans are super flexible. You can skip weeks, pause, or cancel any time. Subscriptions start as low as $1 a meal, which is a steal for restaurant-quality food. For example, I'm enjoying the Korean flank steak rice bowl by Esther Choy.

absolutely incredible. Honestly, it feels like having a personal chef that changes daily based on your cravings. Go to cookunity.com/moneyi or click the link in the description and use my code moneyi to get 50% off your first order of Cook Unity meals to try them out for yourself. The topic of what to do with aging populations in countries across the world is something that is keeping a lot of policymakers up at night. People are living longer and having fewer children, which means more pressure is going to be put on a smaller group of young people or elderly people are going to have to make do with less. Of course, a lot of baby boomers are independently very wealthy as they have enjoyed a high level of job security and incredible asset price appreciation over their working careers. A typical white-haired couple driving a golf buggy around a gated Floridian retirement village might be the first thing you think of when you think of boomer retirees, but these people are far from the average. People of retirement age own more than half of the wealth of

the country, but that wealth is spread even more unevenly than it is over the general population. There are some extremely wealthy Baby Boomers, a small group of Boomers who will be able to comfortably fund a nice retirement, and millions who are fighting for What Little is left. The question is really about what happens when this group just can't work anymore. A study by the Stanford Center on Longevity found that even though Baby Boomers are the wealthiest generation in history as a whole, they are still facing tougher retirement conditions on an individual basis than their parents did. Some countries are pushing back retirement ages to squeeze a few more years of work out of people before they can receive a government pension or access their advantage retirement savings accounts. Statistically, most of you watching this video are either at the peak of your career or are only just starting, which is why we have covered the problems you are likely to face if you don't already have a solid plan to retire. But even if pushing back retirement benefits is a necessary evil, it's going to be a hard

sell retiring baby boomers are a large group, and they vote. The very mention of them needing to work a few more years is borderline political suicide. Most plans here in America center around pushing back retirement for young people who aren't close enough to retirement yet to care. Whatever the plan is, it's not being helped by the millions of people who are dropping out of the workforce, so the compromise is that the payments are stretched thinner. According to Census Bureau data, poverty rates amongst people over 65 have been on the rise, as government programs haven't been able to keep up with general inflation and certainly haven't kept up with the spiraling costs for age healthcare and senior living. If people do re-enter the workforce, it's normally into low-wage jobs that only help support other payments. A study conducted by the American Society of Aging found that a fifth of older workers were making less than $15 an hour, and that included people between 55 and 65 who should be at the penultimate years of their career.

the authors of this study also pointed out that a lot of this low-wage work is intense routine and almost always highly monitored in situations where a person controls neither the pace nor content of their work. Now, you probably don't need an institutional study to tell you that minimum wage jobs are hard, but they are even harder on old people with deteriorating health, which means it could be hard for them to keep this work even if they really need it. When this happens, the last line of support becomes relying on their adult children for care. Now, the idea of your parents moving back in with you might be terrifying enough, but the burden of being a caregiver to elderly parents is disproportionately falling on lower-income households. Lower-income households are less likely to be able to save adequately for retirement and are more likely to have children that are also low-income. When those parents start requiring care from their children, it can impact relationships, career growth, or even how many hours the adult child can put into their work. Additionally, a dependent parent might be

a direct financial burden if their assistance payments don't cover their expenses. This means the children are going to be less likely to save for their own retirement, creating a vicious intergenerational cycle. So, what was supposed to be a feel-good story about millions of people leaving behind the 9 to 5 has turned into a lecture about the grim financial landscape that millions of people are forced to contend with. Welcome to this channel. By now, you should know what you have signed up for. But what can be done about this as a society? Not much, unfortunately. A lot of incredibly smart people are tackling the problem of aging populations, and the solution so far has been to get people to work longer and live on less individually, though you need to assume that there is not going to be anything there to support you when you are too old to work. Pensions are already strained, and if you have a few decades left in the workforce, there really is no guarantee it will exist at all for you. And if it does, it's probably

only going to be enough to cover the bare necessities, if that. So, try to set something aside in a 401k or whatever the equivalent is in your respective countries. It's basic stuff, but when so many people cannot or will not do the basics, it could put you a long way ahead. Now, this only applies to elderly retirees. This problem is being made much worse by the millions of people leaving the workforce decades before they would normally retire. Go and watch my video on why millions of men are simply choosing not to work and how they are surviving without even any of the supports available to regular retirees. And don't forget, if you want to get these videos a day early and stories that will never go up here on YouTube, subscribe to my email newsletter to keep on learning how money works.

People Can't Afford to Retire... Millions Are Doing It Anyway

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