Why You’ll Be Eating Cat Food

From the Associated Press:

The nation’s first baby boomer applied for Social Security benefits Monday, signaling the start of an expected avalanche of applications from the post World War II war generation.

Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, a former teacher from New Jersey, applied for benefits over the Internet at an event attended by Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue. Casey-Kirschling, who now lives in Maryland, was born one second after midnight on Jan. 1, 1946, making her the first baby boomer — a generation of nearly 80 million born from 1946 to 1964, Astrue said.

Casey-Kirschling will be eligible for benefits after she turns 62 next year. An estimated 10,000 people a day will become eligible for Social Security benefits over the next two decades, Astrue said. The Social Security trust fund, if left alone, is projected to go broke in 2041.