WASHINGTON – The nation’s first baby boomer applied for Social Security benefits Monday, signaling the start of an expected avalanche of applications from the post World War II war generation.

Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, a former teacher from New Jersey, applied for benefits over the Internet at an event attended by Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue.

Casey-Kirschling, who now lives in Maryland, was born one second after midnight on Jan. 1, 1946, making her the first baby boomer – a generation of nearly 80 million born from 1946 to 1964, Astrue said.

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