Listen to Australian and world news and follow trending topics with Angus Witherby is a city planner but at 64 years of age, he’s still paying off his mortgage and has virtually no super.“But certainly my own lived experience is very, very different to the majority of people who spoke in the room tonight. I’m not wealthy. I have no superannuation. I’m dependent on my own business for income. There’s nobody else who will give me a job at this stage. Best projections are I’m going to have to work till 75 to pay off the mortgage and other debt.”With retirement looming and less than $3,000 in his superannuation, Angus is unsure how he will support himself.He says there’s a stereotype of cashed-up boomers retiring with a bountiful super balance, but this doesn’t apply to him.The Australian Bureau of Statistics classifies baby boomers as the generation born between 1946 to 1964.After two very expensive divorces, Angus came out of both with a negative net worth.But divorce isn’t the only potential detractor after a lifetime of work.When Craig Doyle’s superannuation fell stagnant 10 years ago, he was advised to convert the funds into property investments which were perceived as secure.In total, Craig’s portfolio contained five properties, with a net worth of around $3 million.However, his financial position was far from secure.In fact, each property was creating more debt than profit due to mortgage costs, interest rate rises, rental freezes, land taxes and upkeep costs.Craig made the tough decision to sell off his properties, which consisted of his entire retirement fund — one by one.“Me and my wife got together later in life and 10 years ago we decided that a way forward was to invest in property. So we went down the line of investing in three separate properties, first through our superannuation policy, take up the benefits of doing that. And unfortunately, last five, four or five years has seen increased interest rates nationally, obviously, and pricing market for the properties that we bought had dropped. In the backside, we were losing only $15,000 a quarter funding our investment properties, and so we had to come to the decision to get opt out of them and opt out of all of them, and we’ve lost money.”Associate professor Myra Hamilton at the University of Sydney researches Australia’s ageing population and issues impacting the baby boomer generation.She says the idea of the wealthy generation is not the reality for some boomers.While much of their wealth is tied up in property, around one in six boomers don’t own their own home.In addition to this, women aged 55 and over are one of the fastest growing groups of people facing homelessness, partly due to barriers in the workforce.“I think there’s definitely a big divide within the baby boomer generation, and I think part of the issue in talking about the baby boomers as a lucky generation or as a wealthy generation, means that it disguises very substantial wealth inequalities within the baby boomer generation and conceals what is very serious disadvantage among some segments of the generation. There’s an inaccurate characterisation that baby boomers have unfairly benefited from a range of social and economic conditions, and young people are struggling. So there’s this kind of inaccurate link between how well baby boomers are doing and how much young people are struggling. And I actually think it’s not just wealthy baby boomers that are the recipients of this judgement. It’s all baby boomers, no matter how much wealth they have.”Economist Evan Luca says that, while there is a generational wealth disparity, boomers have seen a considerable amount of favourable policy in their lifetime.Superannuation, capital gains tax and negative gearing have all contributed to boomers holding an estimated $1.9 trillion in wealth.And he says about 40 per cent of that wealth is held in property.“The thing that’s been so beneficial to boomers, particularly in the latter half of their earning career, changes to the taxation system inside it. The fact that government policy actually actively wants you to put more and more capital into it because of the tax benefits that come to it. So you go from personal income tax, which in this country is one of the highest in the world to a superannuation taxation system, which is one of the lowest in that phase. And we’re one of three countries only to not tax pension phase of superannuation. So once you retire, you don’t pay tax inside super. And you are also one of the three largest impactors on the government budget because aged care healthcare and the NDIS are more likely than not to be aged with people 50 and over.”While the financial support of family is often the reason that children of baby boomers are entering an otherwise unaffordable property market, Angus says he doesn’t even have enough money to support himself.Unable to retire anytime soon, he has had to rely on his children for financial support, and now feels as though his best outcome is leaving his children without debt. “I feel the best I can probably achieve is have my estate not owing any money, so at least I don’t want to burden my kids with that.”
You can watch the full Insight episode ‘The Boomer Economy’ on SBS on Demand.
