Elderly Americans’ growing consumption of health care and Social Security benefits has lowered national savings to unhealthy and unsustainable levels, said Laurence Kotlikoff, a Boston University economics professor.
“The ratio of personal consumption to national income has dramatically increased, and explains virtually all the decline in the national savings rate,” Kotlikoff said in an interview today on “Bloomberg Surveillance” with Tom Keene. “If you ask who within the household sector is consuming so much more, the answer is the elderly.”
