Could the Millennial Generation’s retirement create the most significant financial drain in taxpayer history?
Everyone knows or has heard of the Millennial generation. As of 2019, the Millennial generation surpassed the Baby Boomers as the largest generation in American history. It’s also known that the Millennials have split into 2 factions:
1. The Driven Professionals who seek success, and
2. the Entitled Ones who wait for the family inheritance. Both factions are adversarial to the other, by the way.
By nature, they are typically unwilling to make faithful investments until after results are seen. Instead, they seek to travel and have fun in their 20’s and 30’s, see the world and have adventures. They don’t want to wait until they reach retirement age to begin traveling, resting, enjoying the fruits of their labor, grandchildren, etc. This was the way of their Great Grandparents of The Great Depression and WW2, their Grandparents of Korea and Vietnam, known as Baby Boomers, or their parents of the “Trust but Verify” Generation X. They don’t seem to want to consider marriage until their mid-30’s when they’ll settle down and raise a family. Although they consider themselves the smartest generation, since knowledge is only a “Hey Google” away, the Millennial thought process is rigged with fatal flaws in the Financial and Planning world.
The Millennials are missing the most crucial aspect of “Time- Value-Money,”…which is TIME!
I’ve heard it said, and know personally, that saving money is extremely difficult during the years of building a family and having children. I was never able to save money until I was almost 40 years old. So, let’s apply that fact to Millennials. If they marry in their mid-30’s, have children shortly afterward, raise a family for the next 20 plus years, then it’s safe to say that saving for retirement will begin closer to age 60.
If there are plans to retire at 67, the investment, savings, and time window is about 7 years long, vs. 25-30 years of the previous generations. If you understand compounding, you know this is not enough time. After all, you can be young and broke, but you can NEVER be old and broke!
It’s safe to assume that they will not have enough money to carry themselves through the retirement years by the time Millennials reach retirement age. It could create a huge demand and drain of taxpayer dollars to fund the shortcoming created by this school of thought. I’m not sure what the answer is short of a conscious decision on their part to change the course, but if there’s no change, financial strife seems inevitable.
Of course, this doesn’t apply to every Millennial, but it seems to be a widespread belief. So, if you are a Millennial, the question is:
What will you do to change your future?
RQ SWANN
Swann Capital Services
2201 Avenue S
Huntsville, Tx 77340
VETERAN, ARMY STRONG!!
