News To Know: Invisible Boomers

A common theme to my posts here is the massive demographic shift the country is going through. Baby boomers are retiring (or trying to) in huge numbers and this means the way we approach many government programs from Medicare to Social Security will have to change. Well, a major part of this shift is the aging of the Latino boomer population. However, next to no data exists for how this segment of baby boomers is preparing to retire. We know that Latinos have, on average, less education than their African-American and Caucasian-American counterparts. It has also been shown that amongst those Americans with lesser education levels, Latinos earn less than other ethnic groups. This would point to more Americans of Latin descent taking jobs with fewer benefits leaving fewer options to prepare for retirement. Despite all of these disadvantages, Latinos live longer than the population as a whole. The combination of low education and earnings with a longer life-span means we could be in for a troubling trend of Latinos who can't afford to retire. Or not. The point is no research has been done so we just don't know, and that's the problem.