Why Boomers Are Retiring Broke, According To Austin Williams

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You’d think the generation that bought homes for $60,000 and graduated college debt-free would be coasting into retirement.

But according to YouTuber Austin Williams, that couldn’t be further from the truth. In his video “The Real Reason Boomers Are Retiring Broke,” he explains how decades of bad timing, market crashes and disappearing pensions left millions of boomers unprepared for retirement and still working well past 65. 

The Generation That Had It All, On Paper

Baby boomers grew up in an era of cheap college, steady jobs, affordable housing, and decades of economic expansion. Yet as they hit their 60s and 70s, millions are finding themselves financially unprepared for retirement. 

According to “The Peak Boomer Impact Study,” 52.5% of boomers have less than $250,000 in retirement assets and will have to rely primarily on Social Security as a source of income. And even with Social Security, that only leaves many retirees living on a couple thousand each month, which is barely enough once you factor in housing, food and healthcare costs.

This helps explain why the share of Americans over 65 who are still working has nearly doubled since the mid-1980s, from around 10% to almost 20%, per Pew Research Center.

The Retirement System That Failed Them

Williams explained in the video that for most of American history, retirement wasn’t even a concept. People worked until they died or relied on family support. That changed with the Social Security Act of 1935 and the postwar boom in private pensions. Boomers’ parents were the first to enjoy predictable retirements.

Boomers expected the same. But in the 1970s, that safety net collapsed. The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 made traditional pensions expensive to maintain, and companies replaced them with 401(k) plans, which shifted the burden of saving and investing onto workers. 

Boomers also faced pretty bad timing. Between 1966 and 1982, the stock market stagnated and went absolutely nowhere. If you were to invest $1,000 in 1966, by 1982, with inflation calculated, it would be worth around $500, By following the strategies of today and holding for the long run you would have lost money for the 16-year period.

So, understandably, after years of flat markets, many didn’t even bother to invest at all. By the time they finally bought in during the booming 1980s and 1990s, they were in their 40s or 50s, too late to fully benefit from decades of compounding.

And just as their accounts grew, the dot-com crash in 2000 and the Great Recession in 2008 happened. These two events together erased trillions in retirement wealth. The Congress estimated that Americans lost around $2 trillion in retirement savings during the 2008 crisis alone. 

Too Old To Work, Too Broke To Retire

Social Security replaces only about 40% of the average worker’s pre-retirement income, according to the Social Security Administration, and its trust fund is projected to be depleted by the mid-2030s unless Congress acts. That could leave even more people having to work part-time, delay benefits or downsize to make ends meet.

Boomers weren’t irresponsible. They were the first generation forced into an experimental retirement model that depended entirely on market performance and individual investing skill. Plus, they also had to live through stagnant wages, two historic crashes and the disappearance of pensions.

As Williams said in the video, boomers didn’t just “wake up broke at 65,” they were shaped by decades of shifting rules, corporate policy and economic luck. 

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