The number of people turning 65 and claiming their state pension will rise by more than 150 percent this year.About 700 residents, the first batch of Bermuda’s post-war “baby boomers”, will reach retirement age and become eligible to a benefit from the Contributory Pensions Scheme (CPS), compared to just 276 last year.The explosion in the senior population is expected to continue until 2028 and opposition MPs are urging Government to act now to ensure the public pension pot can cope with the increased demand.Shadow Finance Minister Bob Richards said: “We need to have a study done as soon as possible.”He said the contributory pension fund for all employees, known as social insurance, and the fund for public servants, were underfunded.“The pressing problem is that as baby boomers retire, there is not enough young people coming up through the ranks of the unemployed to take care of those folks who are getting long in the tooth,” Mr Richards said.“It’s not a problem that’s unique to us and certainly it’s acknowledged to be a long-term problem.”Michael Fahy, Bermuda Democratic Alliance’s finance spokesman, said the need for a review was “absolute”.“There is a real issue with the baby boomers retiring that there will be less workers supporting more retirees, essentially meaning less revenue to cover expenses.“The risk, of course, with large numbers of people reaching retirement age is that there is not enough money in the pot to fund the resulting pensions.“We just don’t want to see a large gap between liabilities and assets or, worse, a continuing decline.”Baby boomers were those born in the 15 years or so after the Second World War, when the birth rate rose dramatically.Developed countries all over the world are facing the same problem of how to pay for growing senior populations when the number of working-age people is falling.Economist Robert Stewart claims Bermuda’s social insurance fund has only 31 percent of what it needs, based on actuarial studies.“For every $100 of liability that has been created, only $31 has been set aside to pay for that, which means we are $69 short,” he says.“It didn’t really matter a great deal when there was a lot of young people working and only a few people in retirement, because the contributions going into the pension fund exceeded what was going out.“Now we come into the position that we are in today where we have 700 people hitting 65. That’s 700 people out of the labour force and making a contribution and 700 people taking a lot of money away from the fund that was set up to pay them.“The position is going to get significantly worse in the next three to four years with more people retiring and more people losing their jobs.”Mr Stewart predicts any shortfall will have to be raised through general taxation. “It’s a huge sum of money we are speaking about: over a billion dollars.”Mr Fahy said Government should look at various options, including setting a limit on how wide the funding gap can be, raising the legal retirement age to 70, selling bonds to fund the plan, and the “extreme” measure of stopping capital spending until the CPS pot is reasonably funded.“The point is that our seniors deserve the pensions to which they have made contributions and there need to be some unique ideas to solve the problem with shortfalls, which is not unique to Bermuda,” he said.Louise Jackson, Shadow Health and Seniors Minister, accused Government of failing to prepare for the “tsunami of seniors” caused by the post-war baby boom. And she said those reliant solely on a state pension would struggle to survive.Karen Daniels, director of the Department of Social Insurance (DOSI), said those approaching 65 were being sent benefit application forms in advance of their birthday and appointments were being made for those needing extra help.Premier and Finance Minister Paula Cox announced last month that the CPS fund’s assets had risen by almost 15 percent to a total of $1.38 billion.In December, she pledged a thorough review of pensions, though it is not known if that has begun.The Premier’s press secretary did not respond to repeated requests for comment last week.