In fact, old age is now correlated with strong personal finances. The Federal Reserve Board reports that households headed by someone 75 or older have the highest median net worth — $216,800 — of any population cohort.
This helps explain the findings of a recent USA Today-sponsored poll: that more than three-quarters of Americans older than 60 expect their quality of life to stay the same or improve over the next five to 10 years. Only a minority report any economic anxiety; indeed, 60 percent say it is “easy” to pay their monthly bills. …
We must never go back to the days when old age was a time of privation for the relative few who reached it. But as nightmare scenarios go, that one seems more remote than entitlement-driven national bankruptcy, given the stubborn and expensive fact that the over-65 population is on track to double in the next 40 years.
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