Retirement, Pensions, & Social Security

I think the era of broad prosperity for American seniors will end with the first wave of Baby Boomers, now entering their 60s. Times are tougher for their later Boomer brothers and sisters who entered the labor and housing markets in the late 1970s during tougher economic times.

Home prices haven't gone anywhere in many parts of the country. For households for whom the home was the main way in which they had saved, those households have not seen much of a recovery, and it's unclear how much of a recovery they are going to see.

Most of the country is increasing its over-age-45 population simply because people are aging in place. There is some movement among the retired population, but it's not that huge and people who move typically move locally. Florida is the outlier. In the rest of these places the migration is occurring among people under age 45.

One thing that’s pretty clear: Individual income tax expenditures hit a pretty broad swath of people in the middle of the income distribution.