Boomer Review

Recently Left is Right reviewed the idea of a Boomer Corps as a means to provide meaning to retired baby boomers' lives while assisting this nation in its anticipated time of need. PPI has expanded on this concept and released a policy paper:

Seven years from now, the oldest members of America's largest generation will turn 65, and soon after, our elderly population will begin a dramatic expansion, doubling in size during the next two decades. This coming gray revolution will not only be the baby boomers' last act, but will mark the beginning of a permanent, structural change in our society. These realities will require a major cultural adjustment, challenging not only our mental picture of aging, but also the assumptions upon which our "old age" institutions were built. So far, the debate in Washington has focused on the money that will be necessary to meet the health and retirement needs of the growing number of older Americans, with a focus on ensuring the continued solvency of Medicare and Social Security. This is obviously critical, but it is just as important to start thinking about how we can tap the growing resource that this better educated, healthier, and more active class of elders represents. For more than a decade, the Progressive Policy Institute has been at the forefront of the effort to make national service a civic rite of passage for America's youth by advancing innovative short-term civilian and military service programs, and by connecting participation in these programs with greater educational opportunities. In this policy report, we hope to jumpstart a new debate about creating a second civic rite of passage, designed not for the transition from youth to adulthood, but instead focused on the transition from a full-time career to an active retirement. During the last six decades, steadily increasing lifespans combined with greater levels of health and activity have slowly changed the way Americans approach the later years of their lives. While most Americans continue to see their 60s as a time to bring their full-time careers to an end, there is also a growing number of Americans who are interested in a more active retirement mixing work, leisure, and service. By targeting this pool of active retirees, a large-scale national service initiative could play a critical role in how we take on the challenges of an aging society in the decades to come by enlisting baby boomers themselves into civic projects tackling the problems that their numbers create. Building on America's successful but limited experiments with senior service -- such as the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP), the Foster Grandparents program, and the Senior Companions program -- this large-scale national service initiative would focus on meeting three critical needs....

Read the entire report HERE.