The Age Wave is arriving on the shores of America’s entitlement system.Today, the nation’s first’ baby boomer, a retired teacher from New Jersey, applied for Social Security benefits, signaling the start of an expected avalanche of applications from the post World War II generation.In a Associated Press story, Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue called it ‘America’s silver tsunami.’Kathleen Casey-Kirschling applied for benefits over the Internet at an event hosted by Astrue. Casey-Kirschling was born one second after midnight on Jan. 1, 1946, gaining her recognition as the first baby boomer €” a generation of nearly 80 million born from 1946 to 1964, Astrue said.Casey-Kirschling will be eligible for benefits after she turns 62 next year. She taught seventh graders for 14 years at a school near Camden, N.J., before retiring and volunteering for the Red Cross in Gulf Coast areas hit by Hurricane Katrina.An estimated 10,000 people a day will become eligible for Social Security benefits over the next two decades. The Social Security trust fund, if left alone, is projected to go broke in 2041. Casey-Kirschling said her generation won’t let Social Security fail.’I think the baby boomers will want to get this fixed,’ she said. ‘They’re going to want to take care of their children and their grandchildren.’