SS question - didn't the boomers have any children?

[Vinca]

The premise of social security being underfunded seems to center around the fact there are too few people in the generation after the baby boomers to finance the program. That's what they say, but how can that be? Did that many boomers decide to remain childless? How can this huge generation of people have produced fewer people for the work force than are already in it? Isn't it more likely that so many good paying jobs have been outsourced, the next generation is making a lower wage and, therefore, the percentage they contribute amounts to less money? Can anyone 'splain this to me??

[CO Liberal]

1. My Parents Had Three Children

My older sister and I both had two. My younger sister never married.

My two oldest friends (known them both since the mid-60s) are both childless. And I know many other people my age that only had one child.

So on average (based on what I see around me), I believe that the birth rate is falling. Plus, Roe v. Wade probably had an effect on the total number of births as well.

[illflem]

2. People are living longer also adds to the problem

Boomer children are just entering the work force.

[Riding this Donkey]

19. I don't think boomer children are "just entering the workforce"

My parents were boomers and I have been working for 25 years.

[papau]

26. True - but demongraphics is not a problem - despite GOP/Medias lies saying

that it is a problem.

We will get to a worker/retiree ration of 2 to 1

BUT GUESS WHAT - IT IS NOT A PROBLEM

That fact is already in the projections that show Soc Sec is good with NO CHANGE for the next 100 years if you use a reasonable productivity/GDP growth assumption (the current 1.6/1.8 productivity and GDP growth assumption are close to 1/2 of historical - and way below the assumptions use by Bush when projects the value of private accounts)

With reasonable assumptions Soc Sec is good for the next 100 years - despite the - and after reflecting the - lower 2 to 1 worker to retiree ratio of the future.

[Riding this Donkey]

30. I couldn't agree more...

just wanted to point out that I have been paying for 25 years and this *hole(bush) wants me to give up what I have put in and to gamble my retirement on wall street.

[bush_is_wacko]

33. However, a lot of boomer's chose to nurture careers first and have children

later. I know several families that fit this description. I am almost forty and many of my parents contemporaries have children that are the same age as my children. Some of them have toddlers and infants! My generation has done the same and some of us NEVER want children. It is true to some extent that baby boomer's children are not yet or just beginning to pay into the system I have seen the proof with my own eyes.

To be honest I can't imagine the prospect of raising an infant at MY age, let alone at my parents age!

I am seeing light at the end of the tunnel. My husband and I will be able to be alone again in only a few short years!

[LiberallyInclined]

3. people used to have HUGE families...

how many families do you know today with 5 or more children?
personally, i don't know any.

[ultraist]

4. exactly, small families are more common now (1.9 kids)

Age group
Under 10 estimated based on year end 2004 total population

Age in 2005
Under 10 32,794,908 11.00%
10 to 20 41,077,577 14.60%
20 something 39,183,891 13.92%
30 something 39,891,724 14.18%
40 something 45,148,527 16.04%
50 something 37,677,952 13.39%
60 something 24,274,684 8.63%
70 something 18,390,986 6.54%
80 and over 16,600,767 5.90%

[sickinohio]

5. I'm a boomer and I had 3 children. All the boomers that I

grew up with had at least 2 children or more. Of my three children, one has 2 children, one has three with the fourth on the way and the third child has 0 and does not plan to have any children. Of the boomers that I grew up with each of their 2 children or more have at least 2 children or more each. So, go figure - seems like enough boomers had enough children to suport SS to me (at least from my little world)

:shrug:

[Freddie Stubbs]

13. Three workers for every two retirees is not a very good ratio

Many European nations will be facing a severe economic crisis because of a very low birth rate. The one advantage that we have is a large number of immigrants. Those immigrants work, and they also tend to have larger families.

[sickinohio]

15. Guess you are right - I'm not good a numbers

but, what happens to all the money I've paid into SS? Since I am just under the "55" age limit that Bu$hCo suggests their SS won't be affected? Does this mean that when I retire (if I ever get to retire) I won't be drawing any of the SS benefits that I have paid into since the age of 16?

[Igel]

29. It's a spend-as-you-go plan.

The money you paid in supported retirees at time time, until a decade or so ago. Then we started paying in more than they could spend; it was promptly diverted for deficits.

In fact, I forget if it was in the '80s or '90s, FICA used to be "off the books", i.e., its income and expenses weren't reflected in the government's budget. With that accounting, borrowing from SS shows up as part of the deficit. After they SS into the overall budget any borrowing by the general budget borrow from SS is invisible.

[LiberallyInclined]

14. back when SS was started- families were MUCH larger...

many times there were 5-9 kids each having 5-9 kids of their own...and they generally started having them younger, too.

[Freddie Stubbs]

25. And people didn't live as long

[CountAllVotes]

6. 3 kids in my family

One is now 51. The other died at the age of 43. I am inbetween.

Of the three of us, only one has a child. So, three kids and one offspring.

I do not know how common this is. However, I for one do not regret not having any children as there is no way that I could afford to take care of them. I realized this in my early 20s luckily.

:kick:

[Warren Stupidity]

7. they did have kids and there is an echo-boom

but in-between is a bit of a U-shaped valley.

[cestpaspossible]

8. Not as many as their parents did

[ultraist]

9. 3.8 children vs. 1.9 children today

"Baby boomers have dominated American culture for nearly five decades. Likened by demographers to a pig moving through a python, boomers account for one-third of Americans 80.6 million of the 250 million U.S. residents. They are the children born during the baby boom of 1946-1964, the offspring of women who had more children than those in either the generation before or after them. In 1946, for example, the first of the baby boom years, 19 percent more babies were born than a year earlier. During several of these years the birthrate approached 120 births per thousand women, compared to 67.2 in 1988. At its peak in 1957, mothers of baby boomers had 3.8 children, in contrast to just 1.9 children today. And of course, in the business world, the boomer birth explosion has been a retailer's fantasy, an absolute windfall."

[1monster]

11. No, but there were more of us to have children, so while the birthrate

per person may have been reduced, there were more of us having children. Plus the population of this country has not decreased in any way, shape, or form since I was a child.

Our schools are over crowded in much the same way as they were in the early days of the baby boom. In the last five years, I've seen schools that were built for 1500 students be insufficient in size the first year they were built and have over 2500 students in the second year.

Fears of having zero population growth or even insufficient population growth in this country are severly over rated.

[illflem]

17. My understanding is we would have reached

zero population growth over ten years ago if it wasn't for immigrants and their larger families.

[forgethell]

10. They didn't reproduce

at the replacement rate, which is, I believe, 2.1 children per woman, to make up for early deaths.

Many women did decide to remain childless, or perhaps, didn't have a chance to have children.

[yorkiemommie1]

12. i had one

among my two of my siblings are single, one ( the religious freeper, of course ) has two.

my 11 closest boomer cousins produced four children and an adopted one.

i think this is unusual for us for a number of reasons... hawaiian born asians with very Catholic background.

[Withywindle]

16. Born in '69 to Boomer parents, only child here

My parents didn't replace themselves. I have no children and don't plan to. My dad has one sister, she only had one child, that child, now 30, doesn't want children either. (My mother's side of the family is much more prolific, but they're not American so I don't know how relevant they are to this discussion; for that matter, can I even call her a "Boomer" since her country didn't participate significantly in WWII, hence no "post-war baby boom")

Anecdotal, but I do remember 10 years ago when we "Gen-Xers" were the focus of much smarmy media bloviating, they kept pointing out how relatively few of us there were. I think part of it is not that Baby Boomers didn't breed as much, they just did it later in life. My parents were in their early 20s when they had me, which I understand was not the trend. The 80s and early 90s were when the Boomers, then in their 30s and early 40s, started getting crazy for babies.

So the children of Boomers exist, they just tend to have a wider decade-spread between them and their parents.

[American Tragedy]

22. You make an excellent point. Born in '83 to boomer parents.

Very authentic boomers, too. My father was drafted in '69, and I saw the Woodstock tape too many times to count. :D

[RetroLounge]

18. My G-parents had 2. My parents had three.

We kids each have 2.

Smaller families.

To contrast, my G-Grandparents had 13 kids.

RL

[idiosyncratic]

20. I had none. My sister's only child died . . . eom

[hickman1937]

21. I'm a boomer. I have 5 brothers and sisters.

Between us we have 9 kids. All of which is beside the point. Most of the money boomers have paid into SS has been stolen by our government to pay for other things. If the money had been left alone it would have been there for everyone.

[scarletlib]

23. yes we did have children

maybe families weren't as large as in the past. So many boomers had kids in the 70's that there was a generation of kids known as the 'echo boom'. The number of kids born at that time went up.

Don't be concerned about the worker to retiree ratio. This is another one of those myths that has been circulating since the late 50', early 60's and it hasn't been true. (See the many Krugman articles on Social Security)

Finally as a boomer I just want to let the repukes know that the cute little floater they sent up of letting all people over 55 keep all their benefits in the Social Security program will not induce me to accept this lamebrain privatization scheme. I am a boomer 55 yrs but I have 2 children and grandchildren who would be screwed by this plan. I oppose privatization.

[BornaDem]

24. After the 60's and the birth control pill, the number of children...

I believe dropped to or below the replacement # (2 kids for 2 parents became 1.8 or something like that) and that # was from stats I saw a long time ago. Same thing happened in all western countries following reliable birth control.

I think that is only one of the SS problems (fewer people in the work force to support more retirees.)

[Bridget Burke]

28. So, do you think Bush has the solution for the SS "problems"?

Or do you think his private accounts are the wrong thing to do?

[bush_is_wacko]

27. The wage issue is a very valid issue IMO, but I think it is more like

Baby Boomer's didn't have AS MANY children as their parents AND they waited to have them later in life, thus, their children aren't all even in the system and paying into SS yet. I can honestly say, I know SEVERAL baby boomer families that fit this description. My aunt, both her brother's, and her sister, all have kids either the same age or YOUNGER than my kids and they are the same age as my parents. I am almost 40, my kids are 15 and 11. Some of them have INFANTS at age 50-60.

That explains are large number of them from what I can tell. Careers were nurtured and fortunes built BEFORE they decided to have kids.

My generation is going to be even worse from what I can tell. MANY of us have chosen NEVER to have kids. Some for moral reasons' (the earth is a terrible place to raise a child) and others because they simply don't want to be tied down, ever! they don't even want to own a cat or dog. A child is incomprehensible to them and I really don't see them ever changing their minds.

[freethought]

31. Sure they had children!

The children of the Baby Boomers are Generation X and the Echo Boomers.
The only thing was that the Baby Boomers had fewer children than their parents did. Familie used to have 4-5 kids. The baby boomers trimmed that down to about 1 to 2.

[cmd]

32. The "Pill"

gave families more control over the size of their families.