First Baby Boomer Files For Social Security Benefits

Kathleen Casey-Kirschling filed for early retirement Monday, becoming the first Baby Boomer to start collecting Social Security.  The tsunami of retirement benefits now begins thanks to the baby boom generation and rising health care costs.

David Walker, the comptroller general of the Government Accountability Office, Congress' legislative arm said: "So what's happened is we've gone from 16 workers paying into Social Security for every person drawing benefits in 1950 to 3.3 to one today, and we're going down to two to one by the time the boomers retire in big numbers and that's about where it will stay over the long run."

Kathleen looks completely bewildered, just like you would expect from a Baby Boomer because she's wondering if she will get her full benefits.  The bigger question is will Generation Y and X get their day in the sun?

Walker said over the next 75 years between Social Security, Medicaid and other entitlements, the federal government will be in a $50 trillion hole.

"Social Security represents about $6.4 trillion of that. Medicare represents $32 trillion of that. The surprising thing is that Social Security is the easy thing to fix," Walker said. Fifty trillion dollars, to put it in perspective, is 95 percent of the estimated net worth of every American including every billionaire. Fifty trillion dollars is $440,000 per American household."

For years, lawmakers on Capitol Hill, as well as the Bush and Clinton administrations, have been making alternate proposals for saving Social Security. They include raising taxes, reducing spending, limiting benefits or delaying the retirement age.

Walker noted that despite the term "entitlements," which comprise about 62 percent of government spending, government payouts are nowhere guaranteed in the Constitution.

"That 38 percent (of discretionary spending) represents all of the main functions outlined by the founding fathers of the United States for the federal government in 1787, and yet that 38 percent is being squeezed every year by mandatory spending programs," Walker said.

Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, born one second after midnight, January 1st, 1946 will begin to collect Social Security in January 2008, and will be eligible for Medicare in three years. She will also be joined by 3,200,000 other Boomers who will begin drawing Social Security next year. And over the next 20 years, the gates to government-sponsored retirement benefits will be deluged by over 80 million aging Boomers.

Pray when the day comes we get the same retirement benefits, not likely.

 This Article contains text from FOX News and FinancialSense.com

Article written by Eric Cheshier

Co-Founder of theStockMasters.com

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