A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

by Bruce Cannon Gibney

Without reform, no one—not even the trustees of the systems themselves—believes that scheduled benefits programs can be maintained much beyond 2034–2037, i.e., just as the median Boomers die off. In the meantime, older Boomers have begun collecting benefits and the entire generation will be on the dole by 2028–2034, at which point it will be infeasible to cut Boomers’ benefits. The Boomers’ OAB maneuvers are as well-timed as they are deliberate. The result is that every generation born after the Boomers will bear disproportionate costs, while most of the Boomers and their parents harvest disproportionate gains. There is still time to rescue the system and the United States has the means to do it, but we only have about a decade before the choices become very painful.