Oct. 15 (Bloomberg) -- The first Baby Boomer applied today for Social Security benefits, a milestone marking the approaching retirement of a generation of Americans whose eligibility for government payouts threatens to overwhelm the federal budget.
Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, a retired Maryland teacher who was born at 12:00:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 1946, applied this afternoon for early retirement benefits. She'll become eligible to receive them in January when she turns 62.
``This is the first drop of rain in the flood,'' said Bob Bixby, head of the Concord Coalition, a Washington-based advocacy group that promotes balanced federal budgets. ``It's the beginning of an era. It's symbolic but it reminds us that we're not doing anything to prepare for this.''
The demands on retirement programs by the estimated 80 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 combined with spiraling health-care costs will eventually overwhelm the federal budget unless lawmakers change government policies, Bixby said.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in an August report that Social Security spending is likely to grow by 50 percent over the next 40 years. Medicare and Medicaid costs will increase to about 20 percent of the nation's economy during that time, the agency said, an amount that would swallow all the government's resources if tax revenue remains at historic levels. Baby Boomers become eligible for Medicare in 2011.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAAJdNHgnKUw&refer=home
Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, a retired Maryland teacher who was born at 12:00:01 a.m. on Jan. 1, 1946, applied this afternoon for early retirement benefits. She'll become eligible to receive them in January when she turns 62.
``This is the first drop of rain in the flood,'' said Bob Bixby, head of the Concord Coalition, a Washington-based advocacy group that promotes balanced federal budgets. ``It's the beginning of an era. It's symbolic but it reminds us that we're not doing anything to prepare for this.''
The demands on retirement programs by the estimated 80 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 combined with spiraling health-care costs will eventually overwhelm the federal budget unless lawmakers change government policies, Bixby said.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in an August report that Social Security spending is likely to grow by 50 percent over the next 40 years. Medicare and Medicaid costs will increase to about 20 percent of the nation's economy during that time, the agency said, an amount that would swallow all the government's resources if tax revenue remains at historic levels. Baby Boomers become eligible for Medicare in 2011.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aAAJdNHgnKUw&refer=home