{"id":2071,"date":"2016-08-09T05:26:17","date_gmt":"2016-08-09T12:26:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/?p=2071"},"modified":"2016-08-09T05:26:17","modified_gmt":"2016-08-09T12:26:17","slug":"age-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=2071","title":{"rendered":"Age Power"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x15019.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x15019.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x1501\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2072\" \/><\/a>Retirement Myth #7: Retired people are a drain on the economy.<\/p>\n<p>I suppose this myth gets perpetuated because of all the reporting on Medicare costs: 618 billion in 2015, 17% of GNP. And while today\u2019s seniors profit from the expenditure, they, alone, certainly didn\u2019t create it.<\/p>\n<p>But what about income and wealth, both of which determine whether one contributes to\u2014or drains\u2014an economy?<\/p>\n<p>According to the UC Davis Center of Poverty Research, retirees (those over 65) make up only 10% of the nation\u2019s poor (this doesn\u2019t mean 10% of seniors are poor; rather 10% of seniors are part of the 15% whom the government calls poor).<\/p>\n<p>The UC Davis study looks at annual income, but what about accumulated assets?<\/p>\n<p>According to 2015 Census Bureau figures , older Americans are far and away the wealthiest segment of society. Sixty-five to 69 year-olds lead with a median net worth just short of 200K. The next richest cohort is 70 to 74-year-olds, and those over 74 still occupy fourth place (behind 60-64-year-olds) with a median net worth north of 155K.<\/p>\n<p>More importantly, they\u2019re not hoarding that wealth. According to a 2013 study reported in Forbes, baby boomers (the new retirees) represent 34% of the nation\u2019s donors and give 43% of all charitable donations (a whopping 61.9 billion a year).<\/p>\n<p>So while Medicare is an unsustainable expense that must be addressed, retired people aren\u2019t draining the economy. Truth is we would be a poorer nation without them<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Retirement Myth #7: Retired people are a drain on the economy. I suppose this myth gets perpetuated because of all the reporting on Medicare costs: 618 billion in 2015, 17% of GNP. And while today\u2019s seniors profit from the expenditure, they, alone, certainly didn\u2019t create it. But what about income and wealth, both of which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2071"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2073,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2071\/revisions\/2073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}