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At the heart of all the jokes about baby boomers is the seed of je. Unlike the younger generation, they were able to mainly follow an easy path to prosperity, safety and strength. They were born in an era of unprecedented economic growth and stability. The university is affordable and they graduated in a thriving job market. They were the first generation who enjoyed the complete benefits of the golden age of medical innovation, including birth control, robotic surgery, mapping the human genome, effective cancer treatment, and othenepic.
However, recent policy changes are poised to make life much more difficult for baby boomers. “If you’re in your 60s or 70s, what the Trump administration has done means more anxiety about your 401(k) assets, more anxiety about the source of long-term care, and anxiety about your Social Security benefits,” New School labor economist Teresa Giraldacchi told me. “It’s a triple threat.” After aging into political and economic trends for over half a century, and working for their interests, this generation has become particularly vulnerable to the exact wrong moments of history.
Perhaps the biggest threat to Boomers in the second Trump administration is the social security overhaul, which is advantage 9 out of 10 Americans over the age of 65. In an email statement, Social Security Commissioner Frank Vignano said, “I am fully committed to supporting President Trump’s promise to protect and strengthen Social Security. Beneficiaries can be sure their interests are safe.” However, in February, Doge. announcement It plans to cut Social Security staff by about 12% and shut six out of the 10 regional offices. a quarter The agency’s IT staff has either quit or been fired. The long-term outlook for Social Security is already in trouble before Trump, and these dramatic cuts make understaffed agencies unable to equip people to support those who rely on it. Shutting down the field office means that older people cannot get help directly. Less staff means longer waits when they call, and more frequent websites crash. “If you add hurdles or cause a slowdown in terms of claim processing, you see losses in terms of profit,” Monique Morrissey, senior economist at the Institute for Economic Policy Research, told me. In fact, the closure of field offices in the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic has been Reduced registration Both Social Security Disability Insurance and Social Security Disability Insurance have prevented Americans under the age of 65 from working for physical or mental reasons.
Reducing social security will hurt most income groups. He is most likely to rely on profits to cover the entire cost of living. However, even those with more financial assets could rely on social security as a safety net. “It’s important to understand that even older people, even many older people, is one shock from falling into poverty,” says Nancy J. Altman, president of Social Security, advocating for the expansion of the program. Overall, older people have less medical needs and income than the general population, so they are much more financially vulnerable. At the height of the comfort of the middle class in their early 60s, the height of profitability, there is no guarantee that they will remain comfortable middle class in the 70s. Over the next few years, Boomers who face more medical costs as they stop working may discover for the first time in their life that they cannot afford to buy easily.
Additionally, middle-income elderly people may feel the impact of a volatile market. “They tend to have modest investments and fixed incomes rather than stocks, so there are types of wealth that are eroding over periods of high inflation,” Laura D. Quinby, a researcher of benefits and labor markets at Boston University’s Retirement Research Center, told me. Three major stock indices fell by more than 4% after Trump announced 10% tariffs on all imports in April. They’ve recovered since then, but the volatile market hurts many middle-class boomers who see retirement savings shrink.
In the near future, older Americans may find themselves paying more for medical care. Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” passed in the House but awaits a vote in the Senate will significantly restrict access to Medicare for many documented immigrants, including seniors who have paid taxes in the United States for many years. The bill also cuts Medicaid registrations by approximately 10.3 million people. Medicaid is for people of all ages with limited incomes, but it supports many older Americans and pays more than half of the long-term care in the US, most seniors need some kind of nursing home or home health care. One study found that 70% of adults Those living in 65 people need long-term service and support.
That support is not only expensive right away, but it can be difficult to get. The long-term workforce is disproportionately constructed Immigrantstherefore, Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration could reduce the number of people available to care for older people and reduce how much more expensive it would cost to hire them. “If you don’t have the money, you’re in Medicaid in a nursing home. That’s true. But if you’re trying to avoid that fate, you’ll now be running your money faster and more vulnerable,” Morrissey said.
Elderly people with a certain level of financial security are more likely to live long enough to deal with geriatric illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s disease and dementia. The Trump administration has cut funding for promising research into these diseases. “We’ll see that there are fewer treatments to reach the real world going forward,” told me Thomas Grabowski, director of the Washington University’s Memory and Brain Wellness Center. For now, the UW Memory and Brain Wellness Centre, where Grabowski is working on a treatment for Alzheimer’s, has stopped bringing in new participants. Over time, he said, they’ll have to close more. (White House spokesman Kush Desai told me in an email that cuts in National Institutes of Health funding “putting agents in a better position” “to make a health breakthrough that actually improves American health and well-being”)))))))))))))))))))
Changes at UW Memory and Brain Wellness Center could have dramatic impacts on current patients, including Bob Pringle, 76, who lives in Woodinville, Washington. In April he began injecting donanemab, an anti-amyloid drug approved by the FDA last year. The medicine does not cure Alzheimer’s disease. Although it is designed to slow the progression of the disease, the utility of donanemab and other Alzheimer’s disease remains controversial among experts. Pringle discovered that Donanemab is useful. “With medicine, my decline is not a rapid decline, it’s a mild slope,” says Pringle, whose mother died of Alzheimer’s and her sister lives in a memory care facility. “I’ve always hoped that someone with a brain bigger than you have is working on a treatment, and that medication gives us time until then,” Bob’s wife and caretaker Tina Pringle told me. “But for now, our outlook is tough because of the cuts in funding.”
What I don’t know about the future was always a scary part of getting older. The enormous upheaval created by the Trump administration only escalates that uncertainty for Boomer. After a historic arc of good fortune, their golden generation must fight at a bad time.
But the younger generation, including myself, should not groan. Reducing social security and halting medical research could exacerbate the experience of aging in future generations. Young Americans can age even under difficult conditions. Unlike Boomers, you have plenty of time to get used to the idea.
