The Age Curve: How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Storm

Chapter 17. The X Factor: Where Have All the Workers Gone?

Taxes are just one area that highlights the adverse impact of the small Generation X following the giant Boomer generation. Another critically affected area is America’s labor force.

The vast majority of our labor force of 140 million people is between twenty and sixty years old. In round numbers, those currently between twenty and forty, called Generation X, represent 45 percent of the total workforce. Those between forty and sixty, the Baby Boomers, make up 55 percent of the workforce. This differential doesn’t seem all that great, but if you look a little deeper, as I’ve told you over and over, you will see that Boomers outnumber Xers by nine million people. That 11 percent difference ...