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More than two-thirds of retirees right now rely mainly on Social Security for their living expenses. Private pensions are drying up, just when baby boomers need them. Of those currently aged 45 to 54, according to the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute, 39 percent have saved less than $50,000 for retirement. This amount will pay out less than $4,000 a year. Who will make up the shortfall? Probably not the government.

Generation Debt: The New Economics of Being Young by Anya Kamenetz Social Insecurity Attention recent grads: Your parents are charging your future. November 30th, 2004 10:30 AM …Jacob Hall, not his real name, has changed his entire life course because of his parents' financial situation. The 25-year-old graduated from a prestigious university, where he studied engineering and neuroscience. But instead of exploring either of his passions—a Ph.D. in neuroscience or photography and fine arts—he moved across the country to take a job in finance that pays over $100,000 a year. "There's a lot of things that I would probably be doing instead of working in New York on Wall Street if I didn't feel the imminency of a large financial crisis in my family in the near future," he says. "My parents have not been out of heavy debt for most of my life. I feel an immediate need to make money now. I don't want to be in a position where I can't help them." Jacob's fears are well-founded. His parents are 65 and 61. They once owned a successful business together, but it fell on hard times, and they divorced and dissolved the company 10 years ago. Since then, his father has become "like a gambler," Jacob says, speculating in real estate, and has amassed a staggering $150,000 in credit card debt. His mother is also tens of thousands of dollars in debt. A few weeks ago she called Jacob in a panic because she could not make the mortgage payment on her house. He will try to lend her the money to renovate it so she can either repair or sell it. Jacob's parents' situation may seem outrageous. But the situation he faces is a compressed version of what many people in our generation will come up against sooner or later. Collectively, the baby boomers will need millions more than they currently have saved in order to live comfortably and healthily through retirement.