Baby Boomers need more money for retirement

Here's a shocker: baby boomers don't have enough money for retirement. An Associated Press piece reports that "Nearly one-third of baby boomers ages 51 to 61 are at risk of not having enough in savings to finance a comfortable retirement, according to a study being released Tuesday by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College."

This piece seems like the most believable of the recent studies on this topic that have come out. One actually suggested that people were saving too much, which reminded me of an old newspaper clipping I saw on the 'Headlines' segment of Jay Leno's Tonight Show: "Newspapers look for ways to deliver mail more slowly." I don't really see how anyone can argue that Americans are saving too much money. Pick up a copy of Maxed Out if you need convincing. Why would people who are saving too much money have so much debt?

The saving grace here may be that baby boomers are likely to retire in a way that is dramatically different from the way their parents did. Rather than seeking Florida retirement communities and golf courses, the senior citizens of the future may work longer, often on projects that have a social element -- Remember, this is the group of people that brought us Woodstock and the Vietnam War protests: I don't see them sitting by the beach.

My hunch is that medical advances will allow older people to be more active longer, and that we won't end up with too much of a retirement crisis.