Just because we’re getting old doesn’t mean we have to get poor

You know how the “silver tsunami” is going to devastate our economy?

Maybe not, says this article in Technology Review from MIT:

Her guess is that productivity has fallen as the  population ages because the most skilled and experienced people have left in larger numbers, since they’re more successful and wealthier and can afford to retire. If she’s right, then it’s not that workers become less productive as they age, but that the most productive ones stop working. This means, Maestas says, that a big drop in productivity isn’t inevitable.