June 10, 2012
The Post featured an interesting piece by William Frey which contrasts the ethnic and racial composition of the baby boom cohorts with those under age 30. At one point the piece tells readers:
“Between now and 2030, there will be an absolute decline of 10 million (mostly baby-boom) whites from the ranks of our working-age population.
“Those ranks can be replenished only by the growing minority youth population. Much of this growth will occur because of births, regardless of immigration trends.”
There is no obvious reason that these 10 million retired workers need to be replaced. There are tens of millions of people employed at relatively low productivity jobs like the late shifts at convenience stores, valets at restaurants and hotels, and housekeepers at hotels. If we lost 10 million workers, then many of these jobs could simply go unfilled without any major disruption to the economy or society. Workers would instead occupy more productive higher-paying jobs. The wages in these positions would also rise to keep workers from moving into other areas. (Of course at present, we have close to 15 million unemployed workers, so the retirement of 10 million workers need not cause any dislocation.)
This is not an argument for failing to properly educate and train young people of all ethnic backgrounds, but the claim that there is some crisis presented by the retirement of the baby boomers is mistaken.
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