Baby Boomers, job market, economy: whirlpool soaks all age groups

Former BJ staffer Marilyn Geewax, senior national editor for National Public Radio, writes that the 7.2% unemployment rate for Baby Boomers -- people 55 or older -- is the highest since World War II.

That's bad for Baby Boomers because they are less likely to be hired again at that age. Even those that get another job take about twice as long to find one as younger jobless people.

It's also bad for younger generations, the government and the nation. Baby Boomers are at an age when they usually are at their lifetime peaks in earnings and pay the most in taxes, but if they give up on finding a job, as many have done, the government loses the taxes they would have paid. So younger workers will shoulder more of the tax burden. And if more people begin Social Security at age 62, that will cost the government more, too.

And then there's all that expertise and experience sitting on a beach or in a rocker on the front porch as other nations threaten to pass America by.

Click on the headline to read Marilyn's story. After you read the NPR story, click on

"Listen to the story"

for an even more harrowing account of the Baby Boomers' losses flushing onto everyone down the age pipeline.