Baby Boomers' Luck Is Running Out

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At the core of every joke about Baby Boomers lies a seed of jealousy. Unlike younger generations, they have largely been able to walk a straightforward path toward prosperity, security, and power. They were born in an era of unprecedented economic growth and stability. College was affordable, and they graduated in a thriving job market. They were the first generation to reap the full benefits of a golden age of medical innovations: birth control, robotic surgery, the mapping of the human genome, effective cancer treatments, Ozempic.
But recent policy changes are poised to make life significantly harder for Baby Boomers. 'If you're in your 60s or 70s, what the Trump administration has done means more insecurity for your assets in your 401(k), more insecurity about sources of long-term care, and, for the first time, insecurity about your Social Security benefits,' Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist at the New School, told me. 'It's a triple threat.' After more than half a century of aging into political and economic trends that worked to their benefit, the generation has become particularly vulnerable at exactly the wrong moment in history.
Perhaps the biggest threat to Boomers in the second Trump administration is an overhaul of Social Security, which provides benefits to nearly nine out of 10 Americans ages 65 and older. In an emailed statement, Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano wrote, 'I am fully committed to upholding President Trump's promise to protect and strengthen Social Security. Beneficiaries can be confident that their benefits are secure.' But in February, DOGE announced plans to cut Social Security staff by about 12 percent and close six of its 10 regional offices; a quarter of the agency's IT staff has quit or been fired. Social Security's long-term outlook was already troubled before Trump, and these drastic reductions make the understaffed agency even less equipped to support those who rely on it. Shutting down field offices means seniors can't get help in person; less staffing means longer wait times when they call and more frequent website crashes. 'When you add hurdles, or cause a slowdown in terms of processing claims, you see losses in terms of benefits,' Monique Morrissey, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, told me. In fact, shutdowns of field offices during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic corresponded with decreased enrollment in both Social Security and Social Security Disability Insurance, which is available to Americans under 65 who can no longer work for physical or mental reasons.
Social Security cuts will most hurt low-income Boomers, who are the likeliest to rely on benefits to cover their whole cost of living. But even those with more financial assets may depend on Social Security as a safety net. 'It's important to understand that many seniors, even upper-income seniors, are just one shock away from falling into poverty,' says Nancy J. Altman, the president of Social Security Works, an organization that advocates for expanding the program. As a whole, seniors have more medical needs and less income than the general population, so they're much more financially vulnerable. If you're comfortably middle-class in your early 60s, at the height of your earning potential, that's no guarantee that you'll remain comfortably middle-class into your 70s. In the next few years, Boomers who face more medical bills as they stop working might find, for the first time in their life, that they can't easily afford them.
Middle-income seniors are also likely to feel the impact of a volatile market. 'They tend to have modest investments and fixed incomes rather than equities, so the type of wealth that will erode over a high-inflation period,' Laura D. Quinby, who studies benefits and labor markets at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, told me. After Trump announced 10 percent tariffs on all imported goods in April, the three major stock indexes dropped 4 percent or more. They've since recovered, but the erratic market—whipped around by Trump's shifting proclamations about tariffs—scares many middle-class Boomers, who are watching their retirement savings shrink.
In the near future, older Americans might find themselves paying more for medical care too. Trump's 'big, beautiful bill,' which has passed in the House but awaits a vote in the Senate, would substantially limit Medicare access for many documented immigrants, including seniors who have paid taxes in the United States for years. The bill would also reduce Medicaid enrollment by about 10.3 million people. Although Medicaid is for people with limited incomes of all ages, it supports many older Americans and pays for more than half of long-term care in the U.S. Most seniors require some sort of nursing home or at-home medical care; one study found that 70 percent of adults who live to 65 will require long-term services and support.
[Read: The GOP's new Medicaid denialism ]
That support may soon be not only more expensive, but harder to come by. The long-term-care workforce is disproportionately made up of immigrants, so the Trump administration's immigration crackdown is likely to reduce the number of people available to take care of seniors—and increase how much it costs to hire them. 'If you have no money, you'll be on Medicaid in a nursing home, and that's that. But if you're trying to avoid that fate, you're now going to run through your money more quickly and be more vulnerable,' Morrissey said.
Seniors with some financial security are more likely to live long enough to contend with the diseases of old age, such as Alzheimer's and dementia. The Trump administration has cut funding for promising research on these diseases. 'Going forward, you'll find less treatments reaching fruition,' Thomas Grabowski, who directs the Memory and Brain Wellness Center at the University of Washington, told me. For now, the UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center, where Grabowski works on therapies for Alzheimer's, has stopped bringing in new participants; as time goes on, he said, they'll have to tighten more. (Kush Desai, a White House spokesperson, told me in an email that the cuts to research funded by the National Institutes of Health are 'better positioning' the agency 'to deliver on medical breakthroughs that actually improve Americans' health and wellbeing.')
Changes at the UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center could have dramatic effects on current patients, including Bob Pringle, a 76-year-old who lives in Woodinville, Washington. In April, he started getting infusions of donanemab, an anti-amyloid medication approved by the FDA last year. The drug doesn't cure Alzheimer's; it's designed to slow the disease's progression, though the utility of donanemab and other Alzheimer's drugs remains controversial among experts. Pringle, for one, has found donanemab helpful. 'With the medication, my decline is a gentle slope, rather than a rapid decline,' says Pringle, whose mother died of Alzheimer's and whose sister lives in a memory-care facility. 'You're always hopeful that somebody with a bigger brain than you have is working on a cure, and the medication gives us some time until then,' Bob's wife and caretaker, Tina Pringle, told me. 'But right now, because of the funding cuts, our outlook is grim.'
[Read: The NIH's most reckless cuts yet]
The unknowability of the future has always been a scary part of getting older. The enormous upheaval that the Trump administration has created will only magnify that uncertainty for Boomers. After a historical arc of good fortune, their golden generation has to contend with bad timing.
Younger generations, including my own, shouldn't gloat, though: Cuts to Social Security and a halt to medical research could well worsen the experience of aging for generations to come. Younger Americans will likely grow old under challenging conditions too. Unlike the Boomers, we'll have plenty of time to get used to the idea.
Article originally published at The Atlantic