What is the ‘silver tsunami?’

By Metrocreative

The United States is changing, and observant individuals may notice the nation is skewing a little older than it has in recent years. Estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate roughly 56 million Americans had reached age 65 by 2020, which marked a nearly 39 percent increase since 2010. The increase in the population that has reached traditional retirement age has been dubbed a “silver tsunami,” and that increase could stretch government resources thin in the decades to come. In fact, a 2018 report from the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy noted that the federal government could face considerable challenges as more of its budget is allocated to age entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare. That problem may not prove unique to the United States, as the United Nations estimates that the elderly population in Europe is expected to account for around 30 percent of all residents by 2050. Though entitlement programs differ from country to country, finding ways to successfully manage the silver tsunami could be imperative to various nations’ financial stability in the decades to come.