Fewer Family Businesses to be Passed to Next Generation
Posted On January 31, 2017
I’ve written in this space before about the need for succession planning. The long-term viability of your business may depend on it – particularly for family-owned business that want to maintain family control. But PwC’s annual family business survey found a decreasing number of owners who planned to keep their businesses in the family. Of the survey respondents who foresaw a change in ownership within the next five years – admittedly a small number at 17 percent – only 52 percent were planning to pass their companies down to another family member. That’s the lowest number since 2010, according to… Read More
Categories: Baby Boomers, Entrepreneurship, Generation X, Succession Planning, Work
Boomer’s Influence on Politics Coming to an End? And Will the Younger Gens go the Other Way?
Posted On November 2, 2016
Millennials have made their voices heard in this year’s contentious presidential election, mostly through the vociferous support for Democratic primary candidate Bernie Sanders – a phenomenon I explored in a blog back in May. After Sanders fell in the primary to Hillary Clinton, their level of support for the Democratic nominee may play a role in whether she or Republican Donald Trump wins the presidency. Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank recently cited polls showing Trump leading slightly among Baby Boomers while trailing among Gen-Xers and millennials. Milbank offered the opinion that Baby Boomers’ preference for the combative Trump is proof… Read More
Categories: Baby Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y / Millennials, Voting Behavior
How Long Does Your Generation Shop for Homes?
Posted On October 11, 2016
(Special Blog today comes courtesy of Zillow who researches generational trends on their users and homebuyers across the market place.) By Jennifer Riner Every generation offers specific trends, habits and lifestyles that sets them apart from their predecessors. Much like Generation X differs from their Baby Boomer elders, Generation Y thinks outside of the box when it comes to finding their perfect homes. A recent Zillow survey conducted by Ipsos of 2,010 American adults revealed how home and mortgage shopping trends differ across age groups. Regardless of generation, the average American spends 26 hours finding their perfect place and just… Read More
Categories: Financial Services, Generations, Real Estate
Retirement With Gobs of Debt – A Boomer Dilemma
Posted On October 4, 2016
How much debt are you carrying? Most of us have some credit card debt. Many of us also have mortgages or student loans. Some of us are also carrying debt from home equity loans or lines of credit. As we get older, the volume of debt we’re carrying becomes an exponentially greater threat to our retirement – particularly with the demise of pensions and private-sector retiree healthcare benefits. One might think Baby Boomers would be past some of this, having gone to college before tuition skyrocketed and having had plenty of time to pay off their homes. But while they… Read More
Categories: Baby Boomers, Home Ownership, Retirement
Brexit to the Millennials – Uppercut to the Jaw
Posted On July 26, 2016
When Great Britain voted to leave the European Union last month, an issue known globally by the mashup term Brexit, generational politics and preferences played a huge role in the result. Younger people voted overwhelmingly to stay in the EU, while older voters largely opted out. According to polling cited by Time, less than 20 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 24 supported Brexit, while nearly 60 percent of those old enough to receive pensions were in favor. According to the Telegraph, Brexit’s passage was due in large part to high turnout among those older voters in… Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials, Generations, Wealth
Boomers delaying retirement? Not wanted. Needed.
Posted On May 24, 2016
Retirement? What’s that? Though there is some disagreement as to the degree of this phenomenon, it appears that Baby Boomers are typically working longer than their forebears and retiring later in life. TheStreet.com cited a Northwestern Mutual study that found our typical target retirement age is now 68. A Wall Street Journal examination of the trend in 2014 found that 25 percent of 70-year-old men were still in the workforce or looking for work, compared to 20 percent in 2000. The 20 percent of 70-year-old women still in the workforce in 2013 was nearly double that of 2000. Why are… Read More
Categories: Baby Boomers, Retirement
Succession Planning – The Time is Now
Posted On May 17, 2016
The Great Recession of the late 2000s wreaked havoc on most of our plans in some way. Plans to buy or sell a house, plans to fund a college education, plans to move up in our careers to a better job – all had to be postponed, downsized, or even abandoned until the economy started moving again. The downturn also affected succession planning for Baby Boomers, many of whom set aside long-term necessities while dealing with short-term realities. A recent story at campdenfb.com cited a 2016 Kreischer Miller report, which surveyed family businesses in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, and… Read More
Categories: Baby Boomers, Retirement, Succession Planning, Workplace
Boomers as Workplace Loyalty Role Models? Hardly.
Posted On April 27, 2016
If you’re an employer you might worry about retaining workers, and the difficulties that high job turnover presents to your bottom line – such as the costs of finding and training new workers. Millennials, in particular, can’t hold down a steady job because they don’t know how to, and/or they don’t want to, or so we’re told. They are just too selfish to commit to anything or anyone, including the people who sign their pay-checks. Fret not! Recent research highlighted on fivethirtyeight.com under the heading Millennials found that Millennial disloyalty is – a bit of a myth. Researchers from the… Read More
Categories: Baby Boomers, Generation Y / Millennials, Work, Workplace
Japan – Going Out of Business…
Posted On March 4, 2016
Note from Cam: Gerald Bierling is an invaluable resource to my work. He is a statistics and demographics professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario and gathers most of our research for us. I sent him the link to the BBC article and asked him if he would draw some conclusions in a blog which you’ll find below. Not many children are born in Japan. In fact, so few that the population shrunk by nearly one million people in the past five years. This means there are more people dying there than being born, by a big margin. This was… Read More
Categories: Generations, Workplace
The Job of the Workplace to Fulfill Every Desire?
Posted On February 2, 2016
How important is workplace atmosphere to a millennial? Apparently it was important enough to at least one of them to blow off one of the premier employers in her desired profession. Hannah Gordon, a journalism student at St. Bonaventure University, recently shared her thoughts about a visit to the New York Times in a letter to TAPinto.net. The Times is considered by many journalists to be the pinnacle of the profession, a place to which the most ambitious reporters and editors aspire. Gordon, however, saw it differently, noting her disappointment at finding a “near-silent newsroom” instead of “the bustling, comradery-filled… Read More
Categories: Generation Y / Millennials, Generations, Work, Workplace