FROM BISHOP TO TABLE TOP

What Would Happen if the Next Generation Said "RETURN TO SENDER"  to the Financial Burden the Current Generation is Passing Along?

Michael Round

September 12, 2009

A letter in the mail.  An impersonal notice:  Due:  $100.  Remit payment by end of month.  Recipient:  Bob Jones. 

Bob is your next-door neighbor.

"Wrong mailbox", you think, but are a bit confused.  The address on the outside of the envelope is YOURS! 

Confused, you walk next door.  Why was this in your mailbox, when the recipient was your neighbor?  You knock on the door.  He answers happily.

"I seem to have got your mail," you announce, unassuming.  It happens frequently.

"Nope!  That one's yours!"

"What do you mean, 'This one's mine?'  It says you're the recipient of some good, but I'm suppose to pay?"

"That's right.  Any problems?  Make sure you get that in the mail before the end of the month, would you?"

You rip the notice in half.  In quarters.  In eighths!  You toss it in the trash.  You've lost all respect for your assuming neighbor.

Sound like a fairy tale?

This is Social Security.

We expect our children and grandchildren will simply accept the burden.  Why not.  We've accepted the burdens of our parents.  Our parents did their parents.  Why wouldn't our children and grandchildren accept ours?

Social Security is a demographic crisis in the making.

What crisis?  What does this mean?

We’re told, as the “baby boomers” age, the money in the Social Security Trust Fund (there is no actual fund) will dwindle, as there are more people taking out money than putting in money.

Is this true?

Let’s look at the US population since the beginning of the country to see:

I do not see the crisis – we seem to be experiencing population growth with no irregularities.

But does this picture tell the whole story?

For example, in the early 1900s, the average life expectancy of a US citizen was slightly under 50 years.  Now it’s closing in on 80.  What are the implications of this?

Families are putting off having children until older ages, we’re told, and having fewer children.  What are the implications of this?

And why was there a “Baby Boomer” era in the first place?  What does this term even mean?

What we know, for sure, is something like this:

THE BABY BOOMER GENERATION

The “Baby Boomer” generation is associated with the Post World War II population growth, and technically includes any person born between 1946 and 1964.

But where is the “growth”?  The previous graphic showed no such irregularity.  Of course, in such a graphic where the y-axis ranges from 0 to 300 million, any minor irregularity may be lost due to the sheer size of the numbers.

What happens if I graph the change in the populations during each decade?  This should show if the 40s and 50s were an era of growth.  Let’s see:

Sure enough, but now I have a good idea why this is the case!  It’s not so much these two decades accounted for large growth as much as there was a little growth in the 30s!  This led to the dip in the 40s, as the total population in that decade improved

My original question dealt with a “Social Security Crisis”, implying the aging of the population will dwarf the younger generations.  Is this the case?

To look at this, I need to be able to track the census over time, including the age and sex totals of the population.  This is the study of demographics.

What does the 1950 census look like?

How can I make “visual” sense of what’s going on in such a big table of impressive numbers.  What does the 1950 census look like?

But first, let’s hazard a guess what the data will look like.  Above, I saw a noticeable drop-off in population growth in the 1930s.  Likely this was due to the Great Depression.

If you were born in the 1930s, how old will you be in the 1950 census?  How old will anyone born in the 30s be by 1950?

If you were born in 1930, you’d be 20 by 1950.  If you were born in 1939, you’d be 11 by 1950.  Let’s disregard the exact dates of birth, because we don’t know when, in 1950, the census was taken.  This is just a rough estimate.

Here’s what I’d expect to see when I graph the 1950 USA census:

1950 Census

Sure enough, there it is, highlighting what we’ve already said:  the “baby boomer” growth spurt was not so much an explosion post WWII, but rather an implosion during the Great Depression.

This graphic reminds me of the Bishop on a chess board. 

So we’ve got an “Age Anomaly” that has crept into the demographics of America.

Let’s chart this over time, using government data and projections, and see what we get.

Let’s add one more item to our graphic.  Above, I’ve graphed just the “Percentage of the Total”.  The first graphic in this analysis, however, showed tremendous total population changes over time.  Let’s graph both:  the population (in raw numbers), and the population (as a % of total):

A CENTURY OF TRANSFORMATION

FROM BISHOP TO TABLE TOP

RETURN TO SENDER

What Would Happen if the Next Generation Said "RETURN TO SENDER"  to the Financial Burden the Current Generation is Passing Along?

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