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Baby Boomers Will Start Next Biz Craze

By John Johnson,  Newser Staff

Posted Jun 20, 2009 5:05 PM CDT

(Newser) – The baby boomers may be pushing 60, but they're primed to lead another "entrepreneurship boom" in America, Dane Stangler writes in the American. After all, according to one study, it's the close-to-retirement-age crowd—not 20-something whippersnappers—that has led US entrepreneurial activity since it last picked up in the mid-1990s.


With technology-driven businesses cheaper to run, and people either job-hopping or out of work, it's time for America's gray-hairs to save us from this recession. "Even if business formation rates fell within this age group," Stangler writes, "we would still have tens of thousands of potential mentors to the next generation of entrepreneurs." But with Americans living longer and healthier, boomers will likely lead the way.

An entrepreneurship seminar.
An entrepreneurship seminar.   (AP Photo)
An older man looks for a job at the One Stop Center in Garden Grove, Calif.
An older man looks for a job at the One Stop Center in Garden Grove, Calif.   (AP Photo)
Baby Boomers, though pushing 60, are prime candidates to lead America's next startup boom and perhaps pull the country out of recession.
Baby Boomers, though pushing 60, are prime candidates to lead America's next startup boom and perhaps pull the country out of recession.   (Shutterstock)
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A steady increase in life expectancy also means that Americans are not only living longer but also living healthier longer, suggesting that those entrepreneurial 60-year-olds could be entrepreneurial 70-year-olds in the 2020s. - Dane Stangler

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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 5 comments
Riffran
Jun 21, 2009 9:18 AM CDT
well goshdarnit you "young whippersnappers"...lol...THATS one I haven't seen used in the media for a while..unless it was an old western..........I would vote you up more than once on that question inky, IF I could.....true to the real world
inky
Jun 21, 2009 5:39 AM CDT
How about we all figure out a way to be useful and make a living? Kind of like our parents, and our parents' parents?
kokuaguy
Jun 21, 2009 2:51 AM CDT
One last chance to redeem ourselves ... what did we (not ) do to deserve this?
 

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