Perfect Labor Storm 2.0

Less Workers, More Older Americans - How will we pay?

Fact #473: The average American retires five years earlier than in 1950 and lives 12 years longer.(Source: U.S. Censu Bureau)

Fact #474: The United States will have more than 1 million centenarians in 2050, up from 71,000 today. (Source: U.S. Census Bureau)

Fact #475: Medicare has four workers paying taxes for every senior getting medical coverage. In 25 years, the ratio will be 2.4 workers for every beneficiary. That is assuming the system does not pay for a single new medical treatment. Workers and retirees in the system will take out an estimated $12.7 trillion more than they contributed.
(Source: Social Security and USA Today, October 25, 2005)

More Perfect Labor Storm facts.

Education Pays

Fact #476: Four-year college grads make roughly $20,000 more than their high school trained counterparts. People with two year degrees make only about $7,000 more a year than high school grads. The bottom line: A four-year degree is becoming America's most reliable elevator of class and key to a middle-class standard of living. (Source: Business Week, October 31, 2005)

Fact #477: It takes a staggering 83% of a poor family's annual income to fund the annual costs at private four-year college - up from 60% a decade ago. (Source: Business Week, October 31, 2005)

Fact #478: Individuals with less than a ninth-grade education earn an estimated $976,350 over their lifetime. A high school dropout earns $1,150,968. A high school graduate earns $1,455,253. And a person with a bachelor's degree earns $2,567,174. (Source: Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas).

More Perfect Labor Storm facts.

Living to 140: youngsters at 88!

Based on conservative assumptions for health care improvement through 2065, demographics researchers Ron Lee and S. Tuljapurkar, cited in a Census report, project average lifespans to reach 88 for women and 83 for men.

by 2050, the average human lifespan in developed countries could easily reach 140. Many of the areas of research that are already underway today, including nanobots that could enter the bloodstream, promise to eradicate diseases, improve treatments for cancers, and counteract the chemical changes that lead to aging.

American Just Keep on Living....and living....and living

In 1990, there were 37,306 Americans who were at least 100 years old. By the year 2010, there will be 131,000. And, by 2050, projections by the U.S. Census Bureau anticipate there being 834,000 centenarians.

To put that figure in perspective, those 834,000 people who will be at least 100 years old in 2050 would outnumber the current populations of cities such as Baltimore, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Boston, or Denver. In fact, they would surpass the populations of all but the top 11 U.S.cities counted in the 2000 Census.