not really, just looking around I don't see massive amounts of people my age, those born at the end of the boom in 1964. So, this isn't really all that surprising to me.

I was born in 1966 and had only 84 people in my entire high school graduating class. My brother though, born five years later, had over a hundred, and a few years after that the graduating class peaked at almost 150. This is in a small Central NYS town so 150 for a graduating class is huge. Since then, enrollments have declined but they're still not as small as my class was.

dropped considerably.

NEITHER of them have children. I am also an ONLY CHILD Baby "Boomer".

The census numbers of pretty clear. There are more Millenials than there are Boomers. Unless, of course, you want to take issue with the Census Bureau's methodology.

born in 1971 and son in 1979. Neither have children.

Understand that? They are 33 and almost 28. The world has CHANGED. Or as my own Mom, born in 1920, said to me, "YOUR right to NOT have children, trumps MY right to be a Grandma." I guess my Mom was WAY ahead of her times.

THEIR life and THEIR bodies, not MINE.

There are more Millenials than Boomers. Kudos to your mom though.

and be happy doing it.

The problem is not the lack of children to pay for people of retirement age. The problem is lack of jobs and especially of jobs appropriate for older workers.

Instead of lamenting the population bulge, we should be making an effort to insure that we have jobs available for everyone who wants to work.

I could still be working part-time, but there is no demand for my skills. People much younger than I, straight out of school, cannot find work. I'm not going to get a job for which the employer could hire a younger person. That is because I could still work, but I won't work as efficiently or quickly as a younger person would.

When you look at the numbers, there is no way that we have a 1 worker to 10 retirees, but since this is another way to fear-monger, it just keeps being reported. I have been saying this for years....talking to the wall.

As murielvolestrangler pointed out, anybody with even a passing familiarity with population statistics knows it's complete and utter bullshit.

I posted it below, but here's an animated GIF using the Census Bureau's numbers and graphs that shows the working age population swelling from 1992-2032.

The 1 to 10 number was always preposterously stupid. It was actually completely impossible over the time frame considered, but at least there are facts to disprove the lie.
GAC

come on people, we gave you Clerks, Slacker, grunge music, etc.

I think that would mess with the 1:1 ratio at least a little.

"But, and I’m sorry to tell you this Boomers, but way more of you will be dying off in the next few years. Roughly thirty times more, according to the actuaries. Twelve percent of the above-mentioned 53 year olds won’t make it to see 2022, compared to just 0.4 percent of the six year olds."

However, when you look at the socioeconomic stats, what you find is that increased longevity mostly accrues to the wealthy. The more money you have, the longer you can expect to live. If you're poor or middle-class though, not so much.

What you really need to look at is life expectancy at retirement to gauge how much SS is going to need to pay out, but that doesn't affect the fact that there are more Millenials than Boomers, and those Millenials are going to be paying into the system.

In the case of the WSJ article, the "expert" pushing the bogus 1:10 ratio was saying that because of that ratio there wouldn't be anybody around to buy the Boomer's portfolios. So life expectancy doesn't enter into the picture at all.

At that point, the interviewer should have said "dude, you're clearly an imposter, and have not looked at a demographic trend in your life" and terminated the interview. If he'd said "2 to 1" and "1 to 2", then it would have been worth checking ("2 to 1 entering working age v. retiring" is roughly right for 10 years ago, but, as the CJR pointed out, it will still be slightly more than 1 to 1 by 2022). But a 10 to 1 ratio in either direction is clearly idiotic.

Population pyramids, for both past and estimated future, if anyone is interested: http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/informationGateway.php

It should have been noted that stat was bogus. But I hear it so often that I think it has become accepted wisdom.

This is what our country has come to.

Humans just didn't evolve to be critical thinkers. Psychology, cognitive science, and neuroscience have been making that abundantly clear for decades. The thing that's changed, I think, is that mendacity isn't challenged by those who do, or should know, anymore. In fact, it's become encouraged.

Hah! While you were editing your post I made an animated GIF using the Census Bureau data and graphs.

One need not even understand statistics to see the picture that graph paints.
GAC

I said something very similar in a different post here. 1 to 10? That is so stupid and so impossible that it shouldn't have to be fact checked. It should just be dismissed out of hand.
GAC

The media has abdicated its responsibility. On the other hand, there was an episode of On The Media from a few weeks ago where Bob Garfield was interviewing a right winger about Stop SOPA. The right winger literally tried to claim Google was using bad information in opposing SOPA/PIPA. Bob Garfield cut him off in mid-sentence and said (paraphrasing), "Oh, come on! Google has lots of high powered lawyers. Google didn't just google 'SOPA'." It was a joy to hear.