In 1945 a lot of young men came home to their wives and families after being away at war for years. In 1946, the birthrate in the United States took a gigantic leap from 2.8 million births in 1945 to 3.4 million births in 1946. Coincidence? Absolutely not. The birthrate never dropped back down to where it was before and has been climbing steadily ever since. This baby boomer population growth that is about to give the United States an influx of elderly will definitely try the systems in place and help us to see if we have the programs to deal with this adequately.

Why It Matters

The baby boomer population growth matters for several reasons. The baby boomer population percentage is the largest percentage of elderly that the United States has ever seen. Are we ready to handle all of these elderly? The answer is, unfortunately, no. For one, through research and calculations it has been shown that chances are the Social Security system is not going to survive the pressure that all of these elderly people will put on it. Within ten years of the baby boomer population coming of age to receive social security checks it is thought that the system will collapse. What this means is that while baby boomers who have paid into the system will get some help, it will not be there for as long as they need it. What it also means is that the working people today will be paying into a system that will most likely not be there when they are ready to use it. What can we do? Though many ideas have been proposed, nothing to date has actually been done to solve the problem. Reform is necessary to keep Social Security—a vital program for elderly people—afloat.

Another reason why the baby boomer population growth matters is that these baby boomers will begin to use public health care all at once. While the Medicaid and Medicare programs can handle three million people, it cannot handle three and a half million people all of the sudden and all at once starting to use the system. Because the baby boomer population growth happened all at once, all of these people will begin needing services at roughly the same time. With the increasing cost of health care and prescriptions, something has to be done so that these people can still see the doctor and get the prescriptions they need to stay healthy and active. The bottom line is that the baby boomer population growth has already occurred and something needs to be done to help these people continue to live a quality life.