Essay On Age Demographics And Its Effects On The Global Economy

In general, countries experiencing high fertility and rapid population growth, have a “young” population structure and the important policy considerations are if there are enough schools and, sufficient jobs and housing to accommodate this population. Countries with “old” population structures face the problems of structuring and developing retirement and health systems to serve this older population and also they have a considerable reduction the number of the working force. The decline of the work force is one of the most dramatic economic tendencies of the past four decades in the United States. The individual’s decision of whether to stay in the workforce or to retire is based on the collaboration of a number of factors including the following: eligibility for Social Security benefits, availability of and benefits under an employer-financed pension plan, work

Notably, the elderly populace is growing rapidly, and will reach 3.4 million or 12.8% of the population. Eventually, in the next thirty years older adults will comprise of 20% of the total population due to the aging of 76 million baby boomers (Olson, 2001). Seeing that, entitlement programs and means-tested benefits, are presented, in order to bolster this increment of older adults. Accordingly, around 96% of the American workforce is secured by Social Security and it is likewise estimated that 58 million American will receive a total of $816 billion in Social Security benefits (Moody and Sasser, 2015). In fact, today 56 million or 17% of the population is enlisted in Medicare (Leonard, 2015). Therefore, this has presented an open deliberation about the eventual fate of Medicare and Social Security and regardless of whether changing Medicare and Social Security to means-tested benefits, instead of entitlement programs can resolve the policy issues.

For years, Social Security has provided retired, disabled, as well many other Americans with financial security when they lacked or had little income later in their lives. Now, Social Security is being overwhelmed as the American population continues to grow. The Baby Boomers, or the demographic group born in the post- World War II era, from 1946-1964, have been the main reason for the prevalence of this issue. Millions were born during this era and by 2012 they were eligible for the full benefits of Social Security. Two years after that and for the first time ever, Social Security had to draw from its fund and since then they have not collected a surplus of taxes. Recent predictions show that by “2035, the number of Americans over age 65 will jump from today's 48 million to 79 million,” showing that this is just the start of Social Security’s problems to come. By 2035, I will hopefully be in my mid-30’s, wondering if one I would be able to afford retirement and without this system, I’m a bit unsure.

With a federal yearly budget which exceeds six hundred and twelve billion dollars and makes up more than one-fifth of the Federal Budget, Social Security is the nation’s largest federal program (Moody, 2012). Often, people are prompted to think of Social Security as a retirement program; however it is far more than that, for it provides for more people than just those who are retired. It provides for the disabled, for spouses or child of worker who has died, and for dependent parent of a worker who has died. Hence, depending on an individual 's circumstances, one might be eligible for Social Security at any age (Young, 2010).

Since the very implementation of Social Security in 1935 during the time of the Great Depression to present day, it has been a never-ending source of controversy. As mentioned by Nancy Niles, Social Security was considered “old age insurance” (Niles, 2011, p. 9). It was designed to help older Americans, workers who become disabled, and families in which a spouse or parent dies (Niles, 2011). Not only has Social Security played a very essential role in the lives of many Americans throughout the years, but has also been very important to the economic security of the United States of America.

This report was written on November 20, 2015, by Brittney Bowman, using sources from the VU library website. In this report, I will discuss the presently debated topic of the future of the Social Security program. I will do this by providing information on the history of the program, exploring the current standing of the program and its related uncertainty, and discussing the future of the program. The purpose of this report is to fulfill the business report assignment requirements by exploring the future of Social Security and what events have brought the program to where it is now. The problem with this issue is that due to conflicting information being reported, the current state of the Social Security program is unknown and is rumored to be running out of funds with the program reaching bankruptcy in the very near future. However, this is still debated upon between groups on whether the program is actually going broke. Regardless, the Social Security Program has been a very common source of income for retirees for nearly a hundred years and it will very soon need to be revitalized to accommodate growing need and demand.

The United States Social Security System is often considered a political football, frequently debated on whether the government should continue to manage it or should it be privatized. Either way, in today’s economy, it’s vital to the welfare of many. The main purpose of the system is to provide benefits to America’s workers and their families for retirement, disability, and early death. (Unknown Social Security ProCon) According to the data collected in the 2000 census, “Social Security is the main source of income for men and women 65 and older.” (Hartmann, Lee Highbeam) This finding proves people have become to depend on the government for this benefit, and for a multitude of reasons are not saving enough money to live on once they

Plagued by a persistent barrage, an influx of incoming baby boomers who have sparingly parceled out a portion of their hard-earned fortunes year by year to support their preceding generation, so that their elders may continue to live free, prosperous lives as these elders had ensured for the generation before theirs, the United States Social Security program has acted as a self-financing aid to the nation’s retiring populations since its inception in 1935 as part of a plan to revitalize our nation under the New Deal- a program run by America’s incumbent workforce. Indeed, through stabbing Social Security tax increases, and the uncertainty of The Great Recession in 2008, it was finally their turn to receive the benefits they had paid into for so long; America’s largest

Many Americans believe that the social security program will face a crisis in this century because of funds running out. The fear of the people is that he government’s funds will be bankrupt when those people try to retire. Already a quarter of most Americans believe that they will receive no benefits from social security; what can we do about the social security problem? The reason that the problem is occurring is because of pay-as-you-go financing, demographic changes, the adoption of wage-indexing of the benefit formula in the 1970s. Due to the baby boomer generation, there are more americans retiring than ever. The younger generation has to pay for the older people retiring, but the problem is that there are less young people entering the

In good years, these revenues have outnumbered the claims laid to them, but it is clear that that period is coming to an end. The Baby Boomers – a massive population segment who, in their youth, contributed greatly to Social Security revenues – are now coming into their own as retirees, and will no longer provide the revenue that they did in their working years. Instead, they will be expecting at least a partial return for their years of labor and withheld income, in the form of retirement benefits. The program which will provide those benefits, OASDI, is one of the most costly under the banner of Social Security; its expenditures were propped up by the very generation that now seeks to claim from it. This will have a startling effect on the funding for Social Security. Indeed, the Baby Boomer generation may have been one of the reasons Social Security looked successful at all: because

Over time, human population has increased and unfortunately has caused a lot of problems to the economy as well as to the environment. Many of the issues that population growth has affected are climate changes, consumption and waste, family planning, poverty, food and hunger, and changes to the economy. According to data researched by the United Nations, “the world population will reach 8 billion to 10 billion by the year 2030” (Livi-Bacci: 1992:31-32 cited in Robbins, 2010:130). Eight to ten billion is a lot of people living in the world, which unfortunately might cause more problems than solutions to these issues. The book written by author Richard H. Robbins, Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, includes an

The data is from the 2014 American Community survey conducted by the US Census Bureau. The data is measure on a county level and accounts for all members of the county. The variables of focus are the population of the county and foreign born population to calculate the foreign born percentage of each county. Other variables of interest are the working age population and the number of people unemployed to calculate the unemployment rate. Additionally, there is data on mean income per family in the county as well as percentage of families below the poverty lines. Hopefully a combination of these variables will help give a better picture about what has the greatest impact on the percentage of families in poverty. Most of the data is available

Many people have no idea of what they expect to achieve after retirement when asked about their retirement plans. The government’s policies about retirement do not cater for the well-being of retirees creating a lot of worry for the life after employment. The increasing number of employees demanding cover by government pension programs and the current decline in the retirement income levels contributes to the change of the American pension landscape (Heiland and Li, 2012). The United States of America developed labor laws during the time when the country’s economy was independent and self-contained. The main aim of U.S. labor policy was to get rid of different challenges affecting employees and improve their lifestyle in order to enjoy working in a suitable environment. Additionally, the labor policy aimed at protecting American workers by law and protecting certain human rights. According to Dugas (2013), despite the growing economy in U.S. more than 28 percent of American workers lack confidence with the current labor policy on retirement. The research conducted by the Employment Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) in 2013 revealed that most workers are not sure of saving money for retirement. The above information calls upon a recommendation of labor policy about retirement that would fulfill the demands of workers. The proposed policy will bring change to the Public Employees’ Retirement Fund

From a great age, the political figures and thinkers have detained opinions, based on political, military, and socio-economic rewards, about population issues as the most desirable number of people or the need to excite or hold back population growth. In order to get a handle on population issues, put the facts of population together with the “whys” and “wherefores.” In other words, that need a demographic perspective - a way of relating basic information to theories about how the world operates demographically. A demographic perspective guide through the sometimes tangled relationship between population factors (such as: distribution, age structure and growth) and the rest of what is going on in the society. In order to develop

INTRO: Population Growth is an issue that exists in today’s world that needs to be confronted before it becomes out of hand. The population itself has reached overwhelming numbers making it a problem that could turn to be dangerous. The amount of humans that the earth can support or the carrying capacity is slowly rising but at a much slower rate than the population growth rate. The increasing growth rate has its negative effects environmentally, agriculturally, socially, and economically and also has its positive effects nationally, and economically. The government is brainstorming and trying to come up with ways to decrease the growth rate or at least decrease its negative effects and also creating agencies take handle and regulate population growth.