Successful Entrepreneur

My clients and customers predominantly come from two demographics with Baby Boomers being the largest group by far.  (my second largest demographic group is 25-34). More on why these are my customers another time.  Make sure you read my blog post on Knowing Your Target Market

I have been doing some research for new Baby Boomer articles after watching 60 minutes last week. I came across an article last month on the NY Times and bookmarked it for another time as it was somewhat depressing and I did not desire to read it at the time. After watching 60 Minutes™ I did feel like I do need to be more expressive about what is going on  somewhat un-noticed in our economy and only touched on by Main Stream Media (MSM).

I have been extremely blessed to have found the direct sales, internet marketing and blogging world to take advantage of my skills and experience in 2007.

The NY Times article

Older Unemployed Struggle To Rejoin The Work Force.

Of the 14.9 million unemployed, more than 2.2 million are 55 or older. Nearly half of them have been unemployed six months or longer, according to the Labor Department. The unemployment rate in the group — 7.3 percent — is at a record, more than double what it was at the beginning of the latest recession.

After other recent downturns, older people who lost jobs fretted about how long it would take to return to the work force and worried that they might never recover their former incomes. But today, because it will take years to absorb the giant pool of unemployed at the economy’s recent pace, many of these older people may simply age out of the labor force before their luck changes.

The article covers extensively the additional burdens that baby boomers who have lost their jobs during this recession are facing now and ahead if they seek to rejoin the corporate world.

One of the stunning observations that is simple math is that at a current rate of job formation of 82,000 jobs per month – with over 8 million jobs lost during this part of the recession it may take eight years for the US economy to create the jobs to replace what has been lost. During this time many off the unemployed baby boomers will age out of the work force. This is without major demographics changes, increases in productivity (less positions to do the same work) and population growth.

This is not an issue just baby boomers face.  As this largest population segment retires with a small fraction of us financially independent – the economic dollar impact to support this group of parents and grandparents will be stunning!  It was projected to be huge before this extended recession and financial crisis wiped out home equities and 401K accounts.

OK Now I think you can see why I put this article aside… (you really should read it for a full understanding of the dynamics aging boomers face).

So the next depressing story about unemployed baby boomers was the 60 minutes show October 24th  done by Scott Pelley titled “99 Weeks: When Unemployment Benefits Run Out”

The focus of this segment was on what people were doing when their unemployment benefits ran out – and that a group of people were now being referred to as 99ers – having used all their benefits and having nothing to rely on for income.

As the lead-in stated:

The economic jam we’re in has topped even the Great Depression in one respect: never have we had a recession this deep with a recovery this flat. Unemployment has been at nine and a half percent or above for 14 months.

Congress did something that it has never done before – it extended unemployment benefits to 99 weeks. That cost more than $100 billion, a huge expense for a government in debt.

But now, for many Americans 99 weeks have passed and there’s still no job in sight. Some have taken to calling themselves the “99ers.”

IS THERE HOPE FOR BABY BOOMER RETIREMENT?

Although Mr. Pelley didn’t state or identify this as a segment focused once again on Baby Boomers (he has done one earlier this year – eerily similar) it was frightening to see the people he was interviewing.  It is not age discrimination to say that the vast majority of the people effected were over 55 – baby Boomers! The show was done in Silicon Valley and the baby boomers impacted were PHDs, college graduates with Masters degrees and the majority with college degrees.  They were expressing their thanks for getting jobs with Wal-Mart at minimum wage.  People losing their homes, wiping out their 401K’s and living with friends collecting recyclables to get $10-$20 for food.

Baby Boomer Retirement Goes From Bad To Worse

BAD

Baby Boomers Are Draining Their Retirement Savings To Live

If The Video Above Does Not Work

Here is The Link >> http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6987747n

WORSE

Many Baby BOOMER Retirement Saving Are Gone Already

If The Video Does Not Load

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6987699n

Scott Pelley covered quickly one family of Boomers who accessed their retirement accounts to start a new business. It was home services business – cleaning air ducts for homes heating and Air conditioning systems.  Although not covered extensively by MSM this is a growing segment of Baby Boomers Retirement Plans – Open a Business Rather Than Look For A Job.

Our blog is focused on helping baby boomers on this journey – if you need some help identifying or turning around your new business – reach out to us – we want to help you help yourself!  We love Baby Boomer Entrepreneurs.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my Email RSS feed. Thanks for visiting and PLEASE leave a comment below!

Related posts:

1. Baby Boomers Retirement Plan | What is Yours?
2. Baby Boomers Retirement
3. Baby Boomers Black Swan Event And Retirement
4. Baby Boomer Retirement | How Does Yours Look?
5. Shocking Economic Uncertainty For Baby Boomers