The older you were, the less likely you were to vote for President Obama on Tuesday: Exit polls show that challenger Mitt Romney won 51% of the vote among voters aged 50-64, and 55% among voters 65 and older.
ReutersWorries about the solvency of Social Security and Medicare were presumably major factors in how many of these folks voted; but as MarketWatch columnist Robert Powell points out, it’s those voters’ children (in other words, likely Obama voters) who will bear the burden if the country’s retirement system slides into disrepair. So with the victory parties all petered out, Powell takes a detailed look today at “The 4 retirement problems Obama must solve.” The big entitlement programs are only half the battle: Powell also examines the struggle to get younger consumers to save more for retirement, and the potentially enormous logistical challenges of caring for an aging population.
All in all, it makes for a fairly daunting to-do list. And if you’re curious to know what President Obama might look like after four years of wrestling with these kinds of conundrums, enjoy this photo-illustration by Justin Metz of Bloomberg Businessweek.
