Ominous economic indicator demonstrating the concentration of economic power and spending in a small group, highlighting increased inequality and social instability.
One thing to keep in mind is this is also the expected trend of an aging population. Retirement is a relatively new concept in human history, and the peak of our retirees as a percentage of our population is happening right now.
Retirees now make up 27% of our population. By nature they report very low incomes and also very low spending. They also happen to be sitting on large amounts of wealth. Which is why you get some paradoxical results when trying to analyze the health of our economy - your age is an even stronger predictor of how you feel about the economy than your income!
The retiree boom does not cause inequality - but it exacerbates it. It emphasizes the glut of money on the market and inflated asset prices. And especially things like healthcare and housing costs.
Ironically, the one thing that would save us would be increasing the share of working age families through immigration.
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[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 15.6 ms ] threadRetirees now make up 27% of our population. By nature they report very low incomes and also very low spending. They also happen to be sitting on large amounts of wealth. Which is why you get some paradoxical results when trying to analyze the health of our economy - your age is an even stronger predictor of how you feel about the economy than your income!
The retiree boom does not cause inequality - but it exacerbates it. It emphasizes the glut of money on the market and inflated asset prices. And especially things like healthcare and housing costs.
Ironically, the one thing that would save us would be increasing the share of working age families through immigration.