July 1 is an unusually interesting date this year, and not just because it's the beginning of a long weekend.
This July 1 is the date when the very oldest members of the Baby-Boom Generation turn 59½, the age at which they are allowed to begin making penalty-free withdrawals from their IRAs and other retirement savings accounts.
They don't have to. Mandatory withdrawals don't begin for another 11 years, when these folks reach 70½. But they can, and that fact is being viewed with increasing apprehension by economists and investment houses alike.
And in 2½ years, at age 62, they will be able to start drawing Social Security. Again, they don't have to, but they can. And with Social Security there is enough history to suggest that many if not most of them will.
The Baby Boom, which added an estimated 76 million Americans to our population, began in 1946 and ran until 1964. Boomers have been yanking the nation around almost from the beginning, starting when they swamped elementary schools in the 1950s, and their impending retirement is viewed by many experts as a plunge into the unknown.
Source: In dread of the next boomer thing, Washington Post, June 2005
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July 1 is an unusually interesting date this year, and not just because it's the beginning of a long weekend.
This July 1 is the date when the very oldest members of the Baby-Boom Generation turn 59½, the age at which they are allowed to begin making penalty-free withdrawals from their IRAs and other retirement savings accounts.
They don't have to. Mandatory withdrawals don't begin for another 11 years, when these folks reach 70½. But they can, and that fact is being viewed with increasing apprehension by economists and investment houses alike.
And in 2½ years, at age 62, they will be able to start drawing Social Security. Again, they don't have to, but they can. And with Social Security there is enough history to suggest that many if not most of them will.
The Baby Boom, which added an estimated 76 million Americans to our population, began in 1946 and ran until 1964. Boomers have been yanking the nation around almost from the beginning, starting when they swamped elementary schools in the 1950s, and their impending retirement is viewed by many experts as a plunge into the unknown.
Source: In dread of the next boomer thing, Washington Post, June 2005