A retired New Jersey schoolteacher has become the first American baby boomer to apply for her government pension as the ageing nation braces for a “silver tsunami” that threatens to bankrupt its social security system.
Kathleen Casey-Kirschling was born one second after midnight on January 1, 1946, at the leading edge of the baby boom of almost 80 million people between the end of the Second World War and 1964.
Others born in 1946 include President Bush and his wife, Laura, and President Clinton, whose wife, Hillary, was born the following year.
“I think I’m just lucky to be at the top of the boom,” Mrs Casey-Kirschling said. “I’m blessed to be able to take my Social Security now.”
With 10,000 people a day due