by truemore45
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/unconscionable-baby-boomers-becoming-homeless-103000310.html
So I personally have dealt with this with a family member, they were silent generation and this was before COVID.
I had a family member who got screwed over in a divorce in her late 60s, she was a stay-at-home mom, and worked some but only a small SS check $800 per month. The divorce was due to the husband spending all their assets on stupid stuff. They were also farmers so even when he died it only got her SS up to about 1k per month since farmers don’t pay into SS.
Bottomline we used government services, but the backlog for elder housing with public assistance in 2017 was 2+ years. She does get Medicaid and food stamps which helps, but in the end the family including myself had to pay for her apartment, transport and utilities. She pays food, gas and incidentals. So we are spending over 2k per month all included.
What I have seen of older boomers is the majority do have pensions, but the ones who don’t usually have little to no savings. They are under the delusion SS is enough, which at best was supposed to be 30% of the savings 3 legged stool of the 50-80s. The other 2 legs were pension and personal savings. Pensions are gone so your 401k/IRA/Savings is now 70% of the assumed retirement costs last I read.
I am very concerned that the younger boomers who have only small pensions because they were frozen and may or may not have invested into 401k/403b/IRAs may be very under “funded” for retirement. Given the massive spike in costs in the past few years how are people on “fixed” incomes supposed to not be homeless?
I am a late Gen X (1975) person but was taught financial literacy at a very young age so I did fine, but even with what I have saved I am still concerned given that by the time I retire, SS will be paying 70 cents on the dollar.
For the younger people take this as a warning, save early and save often because 1. Time moves a lot faster than you think. 2. Time (compounding interest) is the biggest weapon you have as a young person. I started saving the 15% max 401k at 28 (which sucked and I lived hard), but it also means at 48 I’m closing on my first million in my 401k. It’s boring and not sexy but simple compounding interest in a 401k really starts to add up. Now I have more money in interest than I invested. So you can do it, but you just do it as early as possible then DON’T TOUCH IT!