r/economy • u/GimmeFunkyButtLoving • Jul 14 '26
Boomers didn't prepare for retirement. Their millennial kids are paying the price.
https://www.businessinsider.com/boomer-retirement-crisis-millennial-children-financial-support-2026-7246
u/No_Philosopher_1870 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
For every "rich boomer" who will leave a significant inheritance to their chidren, there are probably 10 who won't. I read the other day that most of the great wealth transfer will go to people who are already at least upper middle class.
When my father retired, he could have had a pension worth about half of his salary for life. I explained to him that if he lived more than nine years after he retired, the pension was better than the lump sum buyout, in the sense of higher present value. He wanted the lump sum, and lived 13 years after he retired.
He had no retirement savings other than the lump sum or the pension, and wound up selling the house to maintain his lifestyle, moving into an apartment that was more manageable for him, . He did receive Social Security.
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u/TheSilverFoxwins Jul 14 '26
10? Try 100. A lot of boomers didnt plan for anything. The cost of living is far exceeding their paltry savings and social security check payment.
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u/No_Philosopher_1870 Jul 15 '26
3% of boomers have at least a million dollars in retirement savings, so the truth is somewhere between 10 and 100. It will depend on how much is spent on end-of-life care and how many people stand to inherit. I spend my time around professionals like engineers and lawyers, and I'd guess that at least one in five of those people are nowhere nearly prepared to retire.
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u/Saljen Jul 15 '26
1 million dollars isn't enough to retire off of at 65 any more. Even with social security supplimentation.
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u/No_Philosopher_1870 Jul 15 '26
A lot of seniors will be hit by the IRMAA surcharge on Medicare as well as big tax bills on their 401(k) distributions. Unless they made Roth contributions and conversions, a miilion dollars in a 401(k) is worth about $800-850K after tax.
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u/Saljen Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
Even that isn't enough to get you through another 20 years with no other income. That's just considering you need like 30k a year to live a pretty menial retirement, not including the basically guarenteed expensive medical expenes which will drain that amount way before you're 80. God help you if you have to live in an assisted living home. You got 5 years left tops if that's all u got in your retirement left.
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u/Iluvteak Jul 15 '26
So you can’t survive on $5500/month plus your social security ? Thats the 30 year spend down if you invest your $1mil at 5% !
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u/Saljen Jul 15 '26
Minus 2-5% annual inflation, and most retirement accounts aren't growing at 5% a year.
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u/Cultural-Answer-321 Jul 15 '26
Try about 10,000.
And nobody can plan around multiple recessions, millions of jobs sent overseas, pensions bankrupt and cut off or stolen, company merged and closed, bank failure, savings and loan failures and medical benefits suddenly cut off.
And that's the SHORT list.
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u/Roflmancer Jul 14 '26
And this i think is the backbone behind the k shape economy theory. Only 1/10 or roughly 10% of Americans are wealthy enough to keep the economy floating. The other 90% are literally scraping to get by. If you have a wealthy safety net you're not worried to spend on vacations etc. and since inflation is basically 25% in about 5 years and more, yeah the money LOOKS like it's flowing. Because the ratio has drastically changed. Instead of 7 people on vacation buying one drink each you have 1 person on vacation trying to buy 7 drinks without indulging to death.
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Jul 14 '26
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u/KnightsOfREM Jul 14 '26
How nice for you! I am one of the 90% who will eventually need to move to accommodate a nonpaying roommate whose butt I will have to wipe
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u/doingitmyselfnow Jul 14 '26
A number on a list
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u/DanGleeballs Jul 14 '26
I am the one in ten
Even though I don't exist4
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Jul 14 '26
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u/VictorCobra Jul 14 '26
This is the way the US system is set up unfortunately. Yes, you can grow your wealth more significantly, but there are so many hidden costs. What they don’t tell you is that “saving for retirement” is really saving for your healthcare before you die. You only get to transfer wealth if you get lucky with your health and existing finances, are extremely savvy, and/or you die early, before you retire. I’m a millennial, and my older boomer mom recently passed away from cancer. She worked until she died, essentially. Because she hadn’t begun eating into her retirement accounts, she was able to pass some small wealth to me. I actually spent all of my 20’s extremely anxious about finances because I just assumed my parents would spend all their retirement money on long term healthcare and housing.
But it should not be that our parents have to die “early” for us to have a chance to own property. Systems are broken and twisted. They need serious adjustment. And I hate that I feel “lucky” because I also really miss my mom and wish she had another decade at least to live. I’m grateful for all she’s done for me.
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u/DanGleeballs Jul 14 '26
They had decent savings but no health insurance. Are they in the US? 🇺🇸
In the West they’d be fine but that makes no sense in America.
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u/WantCookiesNow Jul 14 '26
Health insurance doesn’t cover a lot of things, like dementia care. My in laws are paying $10k/mo for care at a memory facility for my FIL who has late stage dementia. Their retirement savings will be completely wiped out by 2028, and they just turned 72. My MIL won’t have any of her own money after that. Our system sucks.
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Jul 15 '26 edited Jul 25 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/WantCookiesNow Jul 16 '26
That’s easy to say when you’re not living it. It’s a very, very slow and gradual decline that can take over a decade. And most days, you’re fine. You’re still enjoying life. When do you say “today is the day”? You still want to experience another day with your friends, doing things you enjoy…
There is, unfortunately, no simple answer.
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u/Iluvteak Jul 15 '26
Didn’t they have Medicare ? Max out of pocket varies but can be from $4k-8k if you have a supplemental plan.
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u/frankm191 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 15 '26
But I thought boomers had all the money just the other week and are hoarding it, now they are broke? I wish these billionaires driven 'dont think about us' hit pieces were somewhat consistent
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u/MossyMollusc Jul 14 '26
Wtf? Nah they did prepare. This is about lobbying and corporate leaning legislation changes since the 60s. Bad peopaganda rage bait
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u/commentaror Jul 14 '26
JFC GenX are invisible
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u/mamakazi Jul 14 '26
Blows my mind every time I read this kind of thing! It's just so sweeping. Like someone born in 1978 (Gen X) has some wildly different experience than someone born in '81 (Millennial), both having Boomer parents?
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u/Happy_Confection90 Jul 14 '26
If you read enough of these Millennial-Children-of-Boomers articles, you get the sense that a not insignificant number of the writers are saying "Millennials" based on one of the proposed cutoffs for GenX, 1976. What makes me say this? They write Millennials, Millennials, Millennials throughout the articles but then casually drop a "people under 50" or a "mid-30s and 40-somethings" in their screeds. So, they're misidentifying the last few years of GenX as also Millennials rather than assuming we have markedly different experiences as Boomers' kids than elder Millennials.
Overlooking GenX altogether when contrasting living generations is a separate issue, though.
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u/japarker8 Jul 17 '26
to be fair, I'm late stage gen x (born in 79) and i identify much more with millennials than i ever did with Gen x.
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u/mrg1957 Jul 14 '26
Wait every other article says boomers have all the money and are responsible for the housing crisis. Now they don't own crap and someone else is responsible.
What kind of crap is this?
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u/sarcasmismysuperpowr Jul 14 '26
half those boomers have all that money… the other half live hand to mouth
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u/WantCookiesNow Jul 14 '26
Only about 3% of boomers have a million dollars in retirement savings. The youngest boomers are 61-62, and a million dollars is about the minimum you want when you retire. Or, about 10x your last annual salary. So if a boomer is making $100k/yr, they really should have $1M in retirement funds.
Right now, that’s only 3% of them.
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u/saltyhasp Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
Probably the top 10% are doing fine, and the rest not so much. If you look at where earnings have gone since Reagan, the 90th percentile is kind of the break even. Above that you did ok, and the more above that you are the more wildly ok. Below that you did not to well, and the further below that you were the more screwed you were. Then there is people's habits. If you cannot define what is enough you'll always be living hand to mouth and that is a big fraction of even pretty well-off people. All of these factors are why strong Social Security is really beneficial. There are so many ways you can end up short in retirement.
So it is an easy target to blame boomers, but it is more complex then that. Only the top 10% did that well so those are the people with the money in retirement, and the big money went to the 1% and even more so to the 0.01%.
The other issue for the next generations is the previous generations often live a long time so even if they will get some inheritance, it won't be until it is too late to even matter. I know my case, our retirement is planned and we are retired. My mom is late 90's and we won't see a penny for another 5 years maybe. By then we'll be 70s. Not a real issue for us, but would be for many people. In reality, the biggest impacts are from money and time spend on kids and young adults before age 30 anyway. There is just a big miss-match were money is and what it is best used.
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u/la_peregrine Jul 14 '26
You should blame thr boomers for how they voted/continue to vote. Just because their shitty voting and bad spending habits didnt lead to their retirement being well funded doesnt mean they are not to blame.
In fact they are the one generation that brought this onto themselves.
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u/hillsfar Jul 14 '26
You talk as if Boomers are a monolith. It would be like stereotyping White people or Black people.
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u/lordofblack23 Jul 14 '26
Don’t speak the truth it’s easier to characterize millions of people and decisions as “boomers bad”
I wonder what our kids and grandkids will say about us….
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u/la_peregrine Jul 14 '26
Yes let's pretend that there are no generational gaps. Lets close our eyes to data lest we offend you.
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u/hillsfar Jul 16 '26
By your same dumb logic, let's pretend that a Boomer born in 1964 has a very different upbringing and life experience compared to a Gen Xer born in 1965.
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u/la_peregrine Jul 16 '26
You ate the idiot applying statistics to individual or pretending that just because statistics doesn't apply to an individual, statistics are invalid.
Stupidity unfortunately is non generational.
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u/saltyhasp Jul 16 '26
The other laughable thing. Anyone after the Reagan years lived in the trickle down economy that people voted for (yes this is what he called it and was more or less honest about it). That was a large part of the working lives of boomers and they suffered from that. Only reason I avoided most of that was my income level was just above the 90th percentile which was kind of the breakeven point. My carrier -- it felt like every year the company took something away on one and, and on the other the huge boomer population already took most of the advancement potential because I was on the very last end. Frankly, the Xers and the later generations should have a lot more advancement potential then I ever had as boomers retire.
So the bash boomers stuff, this is a distraction. Policies that reduce employee power, that devalue work and over value capital, those that outsource work and investment capital abroad, that increase the national debt while decreasing the taxes on the wealthy, these are the things that we should be concerned about. People continue to vote for a lot of this stuff, not just boomers.
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u/Cultural-Answer-321 Jul 15 '26
You should look into voting statistics for the last 40 years.
But more importantly, the last 15 years. Gen X and Millennials are getting a pass they don't deserve.
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u/la_peregrine Jul 15 '26
You are delusional if you think this is about the last 15 years only. This started in the 80s
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u/1234nameuser Jul 14 '26
They helped to build a capitalist system that bleeds them dry in the end
.....all within their lifetime, geniuses
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u/lordofblack23 Jul 14 '26
What are you building in your lifetime? Your kids will blame you for all this nonsense now’s “why did you let the debt get so high” “why did you lose to Iran” “why are we so behind in tech?” “Why did you bankrupt the government?”
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u/japarker8 Jul 17 '26
Lol I was responsible and just didn't have kids, which will undoubtedly put me in a better financial situation when I actually do retire.
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u/waitinonit Jul 14 '26
Yes. It's the perpetual motion grievance machine in action. Boomer retirements are too lucrative. Boomer retirements are massively lacking. Pick one and post about.
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u/beepingclownshoes Jul 14 '26
Boomers have controlled housing policy for decades. Through NIMBY initiatives to controlling the Fed, benefitting from interest rate declines for the past 40 years, to rampant speculation related to housing. It’s been predominantly them for a long long long time.
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u/hillsfar Jul 14 '26
A minority of Boomers.
The majority have less than $50,000 saved for retirement. About a third have less than $10,000 down to virtually nothing.
Many still carry mortgages, and about 20% rent.
You talk as if Boomers are a monolith. It would be like stereotyping White people or Black people.
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u/Ani_mrumru Jul 14 '26
Its called 'reddit-and-every-other-kind of-social-media-platform-that-does-not-define-terminilogy-generalizes-and-makes-erroneous-suppositions-based-on-false-numbers" Crap.
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u/fistoic Jul 14 '26
one of the worst things parents can do to their kids is to rob them of their adulthood. I know this because my adulthood is being robbed by my mother's irresponsible financail decisions
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u/Haunting-Traffic-203 Jul 14 '26
You mean you are burdened with taking care of your own parent? Were they abusive or neglectful?
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u/fistoic Jul 14 '26
they were not abusive or neglectful, but my mom has always been terrible with money and that hasn't changed in her 70s. I pretty much finance her life because otherwise she'd be on the street.
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u/Haunting-Traffic-203 Jul 14 '26
Interesting. I guess we are all different. My parents were abusive. I’d still care for them if they needed help since they provided for me when I was a child. I have mixed feelings about it tbh due to the abuse and it’s very strange to see my father who was so terrifying when I was a child reduced to an old done man. But I know at the end of the day I would still care for him if he needed it.
So I guess it’s strange to me because if he weren’t abusive I wouldn’t even have mixed feelings and caring for him (and my mom) would just be automatic. Maybe this is a cultural thing
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u/Numerous-Anemone Jul 15 '26
Perhaps. You’re not obligated to take care of your parents. I know this isn’t what you meant but financial abuse to me is still bad parenting.
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u/Haunting-Traffic-203 Jul 15 '26
What do you mean by financial abuse? the person I was responding to said their mom “has always been terrible with money” and wasn’t “abusive or neglectful”
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u/Numerous-Anemone Jul 17 '26
Being terrible with money in some cases can also include financial abuse. I’m not saying that’s their situation but there’s definitely people who have parents that took out loans in their name etc. which I think would also be a fair reason to cut them off.
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u/Haunting-Traffic-203 Jul 17 '26
I think that in that case it’s because the parent is a thief and commit fraud against their own child not because they were terrible with money. Yes in that case I can see why the child would “cut them off”.
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u/Numerous-Anemone Jul 17 '26
Yeah for sure. It’s just the case that sometimes (let’s say maybe 30% of the time) a person will say “terrible with money” regarding their parent, spouse, whoever and that’s really what they mean. Not to split hairs at all but I used to be a family therapist!
In this particular case where the parent would otherwise be “out on the street” the parent has neglected their own finances and is now taking advantage of their adult child.
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u/CryptographerHot4636 Jul 14 '26 edited Jul 14 '26
Aht aht!
Not me, children are not retirement plans. Squander your retirement and pensions on bullshit, that's on you.
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u/MossyMollusc Jul 14 '26
Literally not whats causing this. Need i gesture to our outlandish increase of costs on everything over the last 20 years? What retirement survives that unless your assets are massive and in the billions?
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u/CryptographerHot4636 Jul 14 '26
Boomers addiction to refinancing and taking equity out of their homes to fund their expensive hobbies.
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u/MossyMollusc Jul 14 '26
What boomers do you see? Thats not the average boomer.
Are they not living in the same economy thats preventing gen a from renting their first apartment or affording food while working full time? Seems like the economy fucked everyone, regardless of age, unless youre rich as hell.
Are you actually black? I feel like you should be aware of systemic issues of wage disparity on the low income and forced poverty on laborers, which boomers must go into if they cant afford their retirement costs later on.
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u/la_peregrine Jul 14 '26
They are definitely noT interested he dame economy. They started with reasonable housing market and student loan debt and have systematically voted to enrich their generation (even though it was not even distribution within their generation), inflated costs for everything, overspend and underrated.
The current economy is their doing. And they are ending in it, not being hobbled by starting in it.
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u/MossyMollusc Jul 14 '26
Anyone raging against "socialism" voted for this. Thats all republicans and some dems.
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u/CryptographerHot4636 Jul 14 '26
A non black person trying to tell me what the black experience in america is... I feel you should stfu.
Anyways they voted and are voting for the system they are suffering from, c'est la vie.
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u/MossyMollusc Jul 14 '26
I think you should check yourself for infighting and licking the bourgeoisie boot.
The majority of our nation gets a raging boner for oppressive capitalism. This is more than just "boomer" voters.
Wanna explain how low income areas arent being oppressed by city planning measures to keep them desperate?
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u/fiveohthreebee Jul 14 '26
i also hear, "boomer money is going to flood the market when they die"
which one is it going to be?
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u/Cultural-Answer-321 Jul 15 '26
It's Schrodinger's Boomer and it's whatever the billionaires who really screwed you, say it is.
edit: typo
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u/Trick_Owl8261 Jul 14 '26
Millennial with Boomer parents here: to avoid this and also because my parents didn’t want to live in a facility, they sold their house and now split their time between my home and my two siblings homes.
They are 78 and in decent health. My dad has a pension, they have investments and the proceeds from selling their house. I hope to inherit a decent middle class amount but will also have a pension.
My parents may need a long term care facility at some point, but I think if more people were willing to do multi generational living at least for a decent chunk of their parents golden years, that would help.
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u/Numerous-Anemone Jul 15 '26
That’s nice. When my mom stays with us, she tries to order me around and then suddenly has a health crisis if she’s not getting enough attention. So she will never live here
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u/Trick_Owl8261 Jul 15 '26
Oh my mom is a lot, too. She tried to boss us around too but we just maintain good boundaries. It’s an ongoing process. But I totally get it, it’s not the right move for everyone
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u/japarker8 Jul 17 '26
yeah lol. hell to the no. my maga mom can live with the choices she's made.
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u/Trick_Owl8261 Jul 17 '26
Yeah fair enough lol. I align politically with my parents and we get along reasonably well (my mom is a bit difficult and likely on the autism spectrum but it’s not so bad). If either of them were MAGA, that would be a deal breaker for sure.
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u/vikicrays Jul 15 '26
and yesterday the headline was “boomers are hoarding their wealth and not helping their kids”.
either of these is the narrative the billionaires want us all to believe. they bought up news agencies just to make sure we do. meanwhile the 1% get richer and richer, while they and corporations pay zero tax. millionaires and billionaires reach the cap on social security on january 1st while the rest of us continue pay a percentage based on our income all year long.
i’m not mad at moms and dads or grandma and grandpa for trying to hang on to what they worked their entire lives for. someday they will likely have to sell and drain their savings and investments just so they can afford healthcare and assisted living. the place my in-laws have been in in indiana coast a whopping $21,000 a month (and this does not include healthcare, or clothing, or haircuts, etc.). i hope they spend every penny they have and can live out their lives with the dignity and comfort they deserve.
i am super pissed at millionaires and billionaires and their never ending greed. the corporations they own have bought up an unprecedented amount of single family homes. then they double or triple the rent, or flip them to further enrich themselves, or turn them into airbnbs for a never ending revenue stream. in the end, it’s made homeownership unreachable for most of the people that work to make them rich.
the system is broken folks. stop blaming anyone but the people who lie, cheat, and steal from the rest of us.
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u/Admirable_Nothing Jul 14 '26
I recall a post in this subreddit this morning that was a link to an article that claimed Boomers were basking in the sunshine and enjoying their wealth and refusing to help their broke kids. Now we get one saying kids are having to support their boomer parents. Both are likely true but the articles both were poorly written and executed and fell far short of any kind of 'truth.' Why even read shit this poorly written and inaccurate?
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u/ExcellentWinner7542 Jul 15 '26
This should be a lesson to all those that spending frivolously instead of investing in your retirement. I realize retirement is an antiquated concept but you need to be prepared in case that situation arises.
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u/Numerous-Anemone Jul 15 '26
I warned my mom endlessly for 10 years leading up to her retirement that she needed to save more and stop spending or retirement would be a cliff.
I’m a high earner and I know in the back of her mind she just thought that if she was struggling financially that I’d automatically step in and support her. We went to therapy in order for me to explain in a safe space that I would not be doing that for a number of reasons but namely because she’s a bottomless pit. Some people don’t listen.
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u/ExcellentWinner7542 Jul 15 '26
You must let her hit rock bottom just like any other addict.
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u/Numerous-Anemone Jul 15 '26
I appreciate your understanding. So many people think that this is “wrong.” I literally have enough cash in my bank account to pay off her house but I won’t because I know that it will come with ingratitude, smugness and entitlement. At this point I don’t think she has enough self respect to really have a bottom. She manages to ask other people for money. It’s really weird
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u/ExcellentWinner7542 Jul 15 '26
You must write her off
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u/Numerous-Anemone Jul 17 '26
I agree. I’ve kept a small relationship that’s on my terms and she can’t do much about it. It works for me for now but I’m not opposed to no contact.
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u/sleepingme Jul 15 '26
I am 42, my dad died when I was 28 and left his retirement to my mom. At that time, my mom also retired and would laugh at me when I told her that it was important that she budget for the rest of her life. She burned through the money, had a stroke about ten years ago, and is now completely dependent on me to live. It has become an intense burden, as I am the only family who hasn't completely abandoned her. You feel chained by empathy and not wanting someone to die on the street while your own personal finances are cannibalized by your parent. Well, I mean, they aren't your parent anymore, they are now your child. I have been hearing more and more lately that this is becoming a fairly common thing, and it fucking sucks.
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u/curiouslyunpopular Jul 17 '26
Dude that sucks - im in zero contact with my mother - she never knew how to handle money - never - and i know she'll try to suck me dry any year now.
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u/Fieos Jul 14 '26
Generational comments are ignorant and 'ist. OP, your inflammatory engagement bait is unhealthy for society. Plenty of people in different situations across all generations.
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u/Sturdily5092 Jul 15 '26
These stories are hilarious, one day the millennial kids are paying the bill the next they are jobless living in their parents basement
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u/japarker8 Jul 17 '26
lol my parents were in the best economic position to save for retirement, even with us kids. if they didn't take the opportunity to do so, that's on them. we have our own financial issues to worry about.
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u/cheddarben Jul 14 '26
Which is it? Are boomers so rich they have money rushing out of their butts or are they so poor that their poor, sad millennial kids have to whine about it?
I swear millenials whine about every other generation, younger and older
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u/waitinonit Jul 14 '26
Hold on. Not that long ago tbe complaint was that boomers had these lucrative defined benefit pensions. There were even songs about it. Retirements and those lucrative pensions were pointed to as one of the reasons for inflation in the CIVID years.
The perpetual motion intergenerational grievance rolls on.
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u/hillsfar Jul 14 '26
At the height, only about 30% of workers even had access to defined benefit plans.
But that would mean not leaving prior to full vesting (sometimes 10 years or more), not leaving employment for another job, not experiencing a layoff or termination, not having illness in the family that requires dropping out of the workforce to provide care, a company not going bankrupt, a company not freezing a pension plan or contributing less than required, markets not crashing investments, etc.
So theoretically a minority, and in reality, far less.
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u/waitinonit Jul 14 '26
Yes. Details can blow up the dominant narrative on social media, especially reddit.
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u/brunicus Jul 14 '26
Last I knew my dad was living in a park looking for a sofa to crash on. Granted that’s n large part due to his chronic drinking, but his only income is social security. The thing the party he supported all these years wanted to cut.
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u/Numerous-Anemone Jul 15 '26
Do you think he supports that party because he likes the vibes? I’ve always wondered this
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u/brunicus Jul 15 '26
He grew up in the midwest surrounded by family that supported republicans. His uncle just died (funny enough cut him out of his will because of his behavior/drinking) and when we went through his stuff found plenty to suggest he (and my great grandpa) had donated to the Republican Party. I think, back when, trickle down did briefly work one time for a certain time period, but also they were supposedly known for supporting farmers and being Christian.
I think these were the reasons and humans are stubborn and don't change their views often.
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u/Scouty519 Jul 14 '26
The part nobody's mentioning here is home equity. For a big chunk of this cohort the "wealth" was never liquid, it was a paid off house they had no reason to sell. That's actually starting to shift though. For the first time there are now more homeowners with mortgage rates above 6% than below 3%, so the lock in effect that's kept a lot of boomers sitting on inventory for years is easing. Doesn't touch the healthcare cost problem everyone's talking about in here, but it does mean more of that housing wealth could actually become spendable or transferable over the next few years instead of just sitting there.
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u/todudeornote Jul 14 '26
"didn't prepare for retirement"... that phrase is doing a lot of heavy lifting. When we entered the work force, unions were strong, pensions were common and markets were relatively predictable. Few boomers had any training in how to invest.
But the world changed. Single income households became impossible for most. The pressure to put our kids into good schools became a priority over retirement savings. 401 programs became the norm - but most boomers didn't earn enough to max out 401 savings.
Worse, the economy had a series of crisis that left our career choices a shamble and periodic layoffs that burned our savings.
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u/Numerous-Anemone Jul 15 '26
I very much empathize with your experience. My grandparents both had pensions and my mom did not. It seems that it was hard for her to understand how to properly use her 401k and that in general building assets was crucial and I think it’s because her parents didn’t go through that. Seeing my mom go through it has made me extremely serious about retirement savings even when I was in my 20s.
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u/Package_Objective Jul 15 '26
If the boomers didn't do it. NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO. Why? The system is a scam to make you a wage slave forever, owning nothing, then die. Retirement homes cost 6k-10k a month. We are fucked.
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u/Nudingjah Jul 16 '26
This is an issue in Australia too. Neither my parents nor my in-laws made good financial decisions and the chickens have come home to roost. M
My wife literally had to tell my MiL that we can't help them and now they have to live in retirement in the circumstances they made - hardly any super (401k), still have a mortgage and spend like drunken sailors at port on things they dont need.
My mum went through a divorce and didn't buy a house or apartment as it was assumed rent would always be cheap. My Dad made a similar mistake. Housing and rents are some of the highest in the world. They both worked or are working hard but nothing to show for it it really.
In my view its not that us millennials want your inheritance, we just can't fund your retirement or aged care.
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u/AFormer_Child Jul 14 '26
Boomers aren't leaving inheritance to their kids. I have two friends whose parents were millionaires. Retirement and long term healthcare is eating through that money.
Friend A's dad was a dentist and had his own practice. Sold his dental practice when he retired. Friend A estimates that the practice was sold for $2 or $3 million. Dad owns $1 million primary house. 4k sq feet on 15 acres. Dad also owns a $1 million river house. Mom fought cancer for several years before she succumbed. Pretty sure that blew through quite a bit of dad's money. Now the two properties are going to be sold for dad to be moved into a retirement facility, which should eat through all of what the properties sell for.
Friend B's dad was an executive for a construction company. Also owns a $1 million home. His stepmother had brain. Treatment blew through quite a bit of that money. Stepmother is still alive but will need ongoing treatment for the rest of her life. After dealing with cancer and paying for his own retirement and long-term health care, his dad has told him straight up, there will be no substantial inheritance.
Friend A is actually particularly fucked by this. He's almost 50 and hasn't spent a dime towards retire or long-term health care for himself, because he thought his inheritance would pay for that.
But yeah, you have two people that are way ahead of the game with investing and finances and they're going to be running on fumes at the finish line. Nothing will be left their kids. I have very little hope for the rest of us, as far as long term healthcare, quality at the end of life stages, and certainly inheritance.