Boomer caregiving will wreck our politics

We have maybe five years to escape gerontocratic capture

This is part 2 of a series on transitioning to a post-boomer world.
- Part 1 - The boomer reckoning no one’s ready for
- Part 2 - Boomer caregiving will wreck our politics (this essay)
- Part 3 - The long boomer farewell

Photo by Oxana Melis on Unsplash

My favorite moment from Thanksgiving was watching my 8-year-old son give the welcome speech to 25 guests. Steve, the host, beamed at him — cane in hand, a bandage on his head, pride and fragility on his face. Steve is 73, like a grandfather to him, and one of the most important people in my life.

In recent years, his Parkinson’s has progressed and our relationship has quietly shifted. This year I escorted him to Philadelphia for a brain procedure, stayed with him during recovery, and witnessed the indignities of Parkinson’s: freezing in narrow spaces, fading speech, fatigue. Years ago I promised: I won’t be your nurse, but I’ll hire one for you and be there for you.

Three days after Steve’s procedure, we stopped by a CVS in Philadelphia. As he walked in the automatic doors, he froze. He just… stopped. The doors kept trying to close, then reopen when they sensed him. People walked around him, some annoyed and others pretending not to notice the embarrassment on his face. Five minutes passed. I stood inside the CVS, pretending it wasn’t happening. I knew hovering would only make it worse. So I waited.

In those moments, my mind wandered. When will Steve need to stop living independently? How much time do we have left with him? And if I’m being honest, I felt something I’m not proud of: impatience.

When Steve finally unfroze, we both acted like nothing happened.

I consider Steve family. My son and I often spend weekends at his house, driving around in his golf cart (the ultimate Florida boomer vibe) and playing with his black lab, which my son considers his. But recently, Steve’s asked me to start helping him with his affairs: bills, home projects, medical advocacy. We’re preparing for a time when he may not be able to manage these things himself. Does he remain in his house with full-time care or move to an assisted living facility? We’re fortunate to have resources, but they’re not infinite. As part of our planning, we’ve had to estimate his life expectancy, which is gut-wrenching.

What I didn’t expect was that my experience with Steve would give me a window into the caregiving tsunami hitting society as boomers age into their 70s and 80s. Here’s what I’m realizing: it’s going to wreck our politics. We are not prepared — emotionally, politically, financially — for what it means to care for tens of millions of aging boomers while also trying to invest in the future for our children.

Consider the demographic trends. In five years, America will have more people over 65 than under 18. Americans over 75 are the fastest-growing age group in the country. The worker-to-retiree ratio has collapsed from five-to-one in 1960 to about 2.5 today. Nearly 70% of people over 65 will need long-term care.¹

Most people think about eldercare as a private family matter or as a subset of healthcare. But it’s bigger than that. The coming caregiving wave is a macro force that will reshape the labor market, housing, budgets, immigration, taxes, and even the cultural and emotional landscape of American life.

And it’s going to expose tensions we’ve been avoiding. Want to enforce the border? Fine — but what happens when the Venezuelan woman caring for your mom with Alzheimer’s gets deported? Concerned about the debt-to-GDP ratio? Good luck: Medicare and Social Security already make up 40 percent of spending, and the boomer retirement wave hasn’t crested. Are you willing to cut Grandma’s care to fix the budget?

Even if you were willing to make the hard decisions, political incentives won’t allow it. Older Americans are growing in number and vote at much higher rates than the young. Many of us want to invest more in children, families, and fertility, but the boomer caregiving wave will pull spending and incentives further toward the old. Politicians will follow their most reliable and expanding voting bloc.

We already see the effects in housing: proposals to abolish or cap property taxes, NIMBY policies that suppress new construction, and expanded use of homestead exemptions. The easiest political move in an aging society is to please the old and shift burdens to future generations.

Labor and household dynamics will come under stress too. Sixty-three million Americans — one in four adults — already provide unpaid care for a friend or family member, and that number is rising.² Meanwhile, we’re facing a shortfall of direct-care workers and home health aides.³ The average cost of a home health aide is now over $70,000 a year.⁴ A private room in a nursing facility averages $132,000 a year.⁵ For most Americans, the math doesn’t work.

I’m part of the “sandwich generation” — Gen X and Millennials caring for children and an older loved one simultaneously. So far it’s been manageable because Steve’s still independent and I have flexibility and support. But I see tensions coming. This month, as we leave Steve for two weeks to celebrate Christmas, I already feel pangs of guilt and worry.

Millions of Americans are facing impossible decisions: their kids or their elders. And it mirrors the dilemma we face as a society.

Here’s my prediction: In the 2030s, boomer caregiving will frame every other issue. And it will prolong the transition to a post-boomer world.

The political outcome I’m most worried about is gerontocratic capture, a structural inability to invest in the future. I fear we’ll delude ourselves that we can “do it all” and pile on ever more debt, setting ourselves up for financial implosion just as boomers die, leaving the rest of us with Weimar levels of instability.

A few months ago, when Steve and I ran budget forecasts based on various life expectancies, I realized: we’re all doing actuarial math now. It’s brutal, but we might as well do it honestly as a society instead of pretending tradeoffs don’t exist.

I think we need to raise the Social Security age to 70 and pursue smart entitlement reform. I also know that will hurt some older people. But pretending we can sustain current entitlements while investing in the future is delusional.

We need to start making tough decisions now, not in ten years when it’s a full-blown crisis. We have maybe five years before gerontocratic lock-in becomes permanent. I suspect many boomers don’t want this. Steve certainly doesn’t. The opportunity is getting them to support reforms that might cost them something. That requires moral leadership — making a stronger case to protect the future. We need leaders willing to ask boomers to be part of the solution.

When I think back to the Thanksgiving image — my son speaking as Steve watched him with pride — I see two generational obligations at once. My first duty is to my son. But I also feel a responsibility to Steve. That tension is something I’ll navigate in the years ahead.

And so will our politics.

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Related Essays

• The boomer reckoning no one’s ready for

• The virtue and private sorrow of Boomer Man

• The forbidden grief of white America

Theme Song

1. See CBS News article.

2. See AARP report.

3. See Commonwealth Fund report and PHI report.

4. See Genworth report.

5. See SeniorLiving article.