Your grandparents are the reason the U.S. isn’t in a recession right now. That won’t last forever

The U.S. economy has a love-hate relationship with its ageing population. In the long term, an older population is a headache: It means a shrinking labor pool leading to slower growth, and increased social care costs.

On the other hand, the United States’s older generations are the ones—directly or indirectly—keeping the economy out of a recession at the present moment.

Take the labor market. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, 97% of net private-sector job creation...