Editor's Note: Below are a couple interesting excerpts from a recent institutional research note written by our Demography analyst Neil Howe. To access Neil Howe's research research email sales@hedgeye.com.
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Gen Xers on average say that the ideal retirement begins at age 60, the lowest age of any generation. Xers are in for a rude awakening when they discover that they have not saved enough for such an early retirement themselves. (Bankrate) Neil Howe: Rude awakening, indeed. One clue is the survey's finding that the Silent Generation--whose early wave (born in the late 1920s) actually did retire earlier than any other generation--has a much older estimate (age 65) of the ideal retirement age. What do they know that younger generations don't? Most importantly, they know that every generation, when young, vastly overestimates the odds that it can afford to retire early. If that was true for the Silent, who had everything going for them economically, it will surely be true for Xers, who don't. When they're young, generations don't realize that the actual reason why most people retire early is that they're sick and disabled. A later retirement age actually has a strong positive correlation with income and longevity. And some research shows that this link may even be causal--in other words, that the decision to retire later causes you to live longer. Message to Gen Xers: Listen to this word of wisdom from your parents' generation. Find something you will love to do as you grow older. And, above all, be very careful what you wish for. In truTV’s new game show Paid Off, Millennial (and some Xer) contestants get help with their student loans. Forget fancy cars or dream vacations; in a sign of the times, the ultimate prize for a generation buried in post-grad debt is a zero balance sheet. (MarketWatch) Neil Howe: This is new territory. Boomers and Xers, over their lives, have been featured heavily in contest shows that reward the winner with a pile of cash or a dream vacation to some exotic locale. Here is a show focusing on the hardships of young adults and rewarding the winner with an escape from indentured servitude. The only precedent I can think of is "Queen for a Day," a very popular TV contest show in the late 1940s starring young postwar housewives with hard-luck stories (child has polio, husband is unemployed, and so on). Millennial audiences no longer want to see ordinary people get lucky. They would rather watch unlucky people get deliverance. |
