The topic of what to do with aging populations in countries across the world is something that is keeping a lot of policy makers up at night.

People are living longer and having fewer children, which means more pressure is going to be put on a smaller group of young people or elderly people are going to have to make do with less.

Of course, a lot of baby boomers are independently very wealthy as they have enjoyed a high level of job security an incredible asset price appreciation over their working careers.

A typical white-haired couple driving a gold buggy around a gated Floridian retirement village might be the first thing when you think of boomer retirees. But these people are far from the average.

People of retirement age own more than half of the wealth of the country, but that wealth is spread even more unevenly than it is over the general population.

There are some extremely wealthy baby boomers, a small group of boomers who will be able to comfortably fund a nice retirement and millions who are fighting for what little is left.

The question is really about what happens when this group just can't work anymore.

A study by the Stanford Center on Longevity found that even though baby boomers are the wealthiest generation in history as a whole, they are still facing tougher retirement conditions on an individual basis than their parents dead.

Some countries are pushing back retirement ages to squeeze a few more years of work out of people, before they can receive a government pension or access their advantage retirement savings accounts.

Statistically, most of you watching this video are either at the peak of your career or are only just starting, which is why we have covered the problems you are likely to face if you don't already have a solid plan to retire.

But even if pushing back retirement benefits is a necessary evil, it's going to be a hard sell. Retiring baby boomers are a large group and they vote.

The very mention of them needing to work a few more years is borderline political suicide.

Most plans here in America Center around pushing back retirement for young people who aren't close enough to retirement yet to care.

Whatever the plan is, it's not being helped by the millions of people who are dropping out of the workforce. So the compromise is that the payments are stretched thinner.

According to Census Bureau data, poverty rates amongst people over 65 has been on the rise

as government programs haven't been able to keep up with general inflation and certainly haven't kept up with the spiraling costs for age healthcare and senior living.

If people do re-enter the workforce, it's normally into low wage jobs that only help support other payments.

A study conducted by the American Society of Aging found that a fifth of older workers were making less than $15 an hour.

And that included people between 55 and 65 who should be at the penultimate years of their career.

The authors of this study also pointed out that a lot of this low-wage work is intense routine and almost always highly monitored in situations where a person controls neither the pace nor content of their work.

Now you probably don't need an Institutional study to tell you that minimum wage jobs are hard, but they are even harder on old people with deteriorating health, which means it could be hard for them to keep this work even if they really need it.

When this happens, the last line of support becomes relying on their adult children for care.

Now the idea of your parents moving back in with you might be terrifying enough, but the burden of being a caregiver to elderly parents is disproportionately falling on lower income households.

Lower income households are less likely to be able to save adequately for retirement and are more likely to have children that are also lwo income.

When those parents start requiring care from their children, it can impact relationships, career growth or even how many hours the adult child can put into their work.

Additionally, a dependent parent might be a direct financial burden if their assistance payments don't cover their expenses.

This means the children are going to be less likely to save for their own retirement, creating a vicious intergenerational cycle.

So what was supposed to be a feel-good story about millions of people leaving behind the 9 to 5 has turned into a lecture about the grim financial landscape that millions of people are forced to contend with?

Welcome to this channel. By now, you should know what you have signed up for. But what can be done about this?

As a society, not much unfortunately, a lot of incredibly smart people are tackling the problem of aging populations and the solution so far have been to get people to work longer and live on less.

Individually though, you need to assume that there is not going to be anything there to support you when you are too old to work.

Pensions are already strained and if you have a few decades left in the workforce, there really is no guarantee it will exist at all for you.

And if it does, it's probably only going to be enough to cover the bare necessities if that.

So try to set something as said in a 401(k) or whatever the equivalent is in your respective countries.

It's basic stuff, but when so many people cannot or will not do the basics, it could put you a long way ahead. Now this only applies to elderly retirees.

This problem is being made much worse by the millions of people leaving the workforce decades before they would normally retire.

Go and watch my video on why millions of men are simply choosing not to work and how they are surviving without even any of the supports available to regular retirees.

And don't forget if you want to get these videos a day early and stories that will never go up here on YouTube, subscribe to my email newsletter to keep on learning how money works.