Aging boomers strain pension funds

TALLAHASSEE – Since World War II, Florida has beckoned retirees looking to spend their golden years in the sun. The steady stream has made Florida the oldest state in the nation. Now, Florida is headed for an even grayer future in the Baby Boomer retirement era, state economists and demographers predict. The consequences: worker shortages and severe strains on public pensions and government services.

By 2030, more than one in four state residents will be 65 or older – or 26 percent, compared to 17 percent today, the University of Florida Bureau for Business and Economic Research says. Over the next two decades, researchers say, Florida's senior population will account for almost 60 percent of the state's population growth, and swell to more than 6 million.

All the projections are based on historical migration patterns, but they point to an increasingly aged population. Over the next two decades, 80 million Baby Boomers born from 1946 to 1964 are expected to retire, which will place a severe strain on Social Security and Medicare.

Many will head to Florida, as has been happening for decades. Drawn by affordable living, air-conditioned homes and planned communities like Lake County's The Villages, Florida's retiree population steadily surged over the last half-century, going from 8.6 percent of the population in 1950 to 17.6 percent in 2000.

That number is set to balloon even more, reports the UF study, which was commissioned by the Legislature. Florida's current retiree population -- 3.3 million residents 65 or older -- will jump to 4.6 million in 2020 and 6.3 million in 2030, the study projects. That far outstrips the expected growth rate among working-age residents.

"It's mostly due to the shift in the U.S. age structure, the aging of the Baby Boom generation, which was huge – much larger than those born in the previous years or the following years," said Stan Smith, who leads the UF research department.

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Aging boomers strain pension funds - Orlando Sentinel - November 10, 2009