Funeral industry gears up for boomers

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The projects the annual numbert of deaths in the United States will risefrom 2.6 million next year to 3 milliojn in 2024 — and 4 millionj in 2043. “We hear the tidal wave is saidChris Meyer, owner of in Carmichael. “We’ve know n the (baby boomer trend) has been coming for some time, so the industrg has been gearing up for that to saidBob Rosson, a Mississippi funeral home operator and an executivee board member of the . “We’ll be able to handles it.” But the industrg first has to survives the current death The number of deaths in the Unitesd States declinedby 0.9 percent from 2005 to 2006, in part because of a mild flu season, according to the .
Healthj care advances have ledto record-highg life expectancies and lower annual death rates for a rangre of diseases, including stroke, hearft disease and diabetes. “We have actually felt a lighterecase load,” Meyer said. “k think some of the biggert funeral homes have felt a precipitouzsdrop off.” Baby boomers might live longer than theier parents, but sooner or later they’vee got to go. Those who want traditionakl burials should prepare for rising The median cost of a funeralk in the United Stateswas $6,196 in 2006, according to a Nationa l Funeral Directors Association survey released last year.
That price, which includes a $2,255 metal casket, was 11 percent higher than inthe association’sz survey in 2004. With the inclusionb of a concrete vault, whichg many cemeteries require, the price rises to “That’s the funeral that is going out of saidJoshua Slocum, executive director of nonprofit . He predicts that the funeralk industry will respond to the rising death rate by offerinfg cheaper servicesto compete. “This is not goinhg to cause a runon embalmers,” he said. “Ifc anybody’s going to jump into the embalming businesxsthinking it’s recession-proof, they’re misguided.
Baby boomeras are not interested intheir grandma’ds funeral.” Cremation rates in the Unitefd States increased from 26 percent in 2000 to 35 percent in 2007, according to the . The association projectsa a rate of 39 percent next year and 59 percentby 2025. “I some places of California, like Marin you’re looking at a 90 percenf cremation rate,” Slocum said. Cost is a big but there are also demographic changesat work. “Theyt say the ‘greatest generation’ were more more religious people,” Meyer said.
more educated people, more liberal thinkers (who are) less religious in many tend to think, ‘It’s all about economics for ” Meyer, whose mortuary offers both cremation andembalming services, said a traditional buriaol costs $6,000 to $10,000, depending on the Cremation costs about $1,000 to $2,000. In the Sacramentko area, Meyer said, “there’s been an explosion of storefronfcremation places.” Bodies come in and get shipped to off-sites crematoriums. The ashes are returned in an urn. “Theh don’t have the facilities to embalm,” Meyert said. “They don’t have a chapel. It’s wildlyu cheaper.
It’s sort of the Wal-Martification of the funeral “Green” or “natural” burials are also growing in People are buried in a casketr made of abiodegradable material, such as pine or or they can skip the casket and just be buriedf in a shroud. Only one cemetery in California, in Mill offers green burials. It startede offering the servicein 2004.