Posted on 05/09/2024 8:04:04 PM PDT by Cronos
Cathy R., 63, has a master's degree and has worked all her life, though she's very worried for her future.
The clerical worker in Minnesota has struggled to rise up the ranks throughout her career. She said she's earning a salary similar to some entry-level positions despite nearly three decades in her current role. She's nervous that even though she's eligible for a pension in a few years, it won't supplement Social Security payments nearly enough to live comfortably.
"I can't afford life while working. How can I even think of retiring?" the St. Paul, Minnesota resident said.
...Cathy grew up in Minnesota and attended the University of Minnesota, after which she enrolled in law school. She worked full-time as a legal secretary at the Attorney General's office while in school part-time at night.
She said the job didn't work out, as her supervisor disapproved of her leaving an hour early each day to attend classes. Law school didn't pan out after two years, and she was laid off from her government position. She still had loads of student loan debt, and she took jobs in Minneapolis as a legal secretary at different law firms.
After a decade, she hadn't climbed the corporate ladder at any firm, so she returned to working for the state government to attempt to make more money and not lose benefits. She worked at the Department of Revenue in the mailroom, then got a job as an administrative assistant for the state's college system, which she kept for about 25 years.
Because she worked for the college system, she received free tuition for a degree, so she obtained a master's in public administration shortly before the pandemic.
...Many peak boomers also fall into the growing category of ALICE, which stands for asset-limited, income-constrained, and employed.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Regards,
The 1950s in the USA was boom time because the rest of the world was eith
1. Recovering from wartime devastation
2. Post colonial
3. Under communism
That changed in the mid 60s and 70s when western Europe and Japan caught up. The rest of the world caught up in the 90s.
The halcyon days of 50s aren’t coming back
Manufacturing employment is going down everywhere now due to automation
Another opportunity to declare yourself an illegal alien.
> ...Cathy grew up in Minnesota and attended the University of Minnesota, after which she enrolled in law school.
The history glides over what Cathy majored in at the University of Minnesota.
Can anyone guess what her undergraduate major was? More importantly, why was her undergraduate major not noted in the story?
One is led to suspect that her undergraduate major was in the “liberal arts.” This could have been “strike one” in her career path.
She decided to rescue herself by attending law school during evenings. Another invented character Saul Goodman did this and survived, but it took hard work and dedication. There is another route which is to become a paralegal first. Typically large law firms offer this path. The state AG office did not? I think something is missing from the story, a reason why she did not become a paralegal while at that job. Whatever it was, it was strike two.
strike three was overextending herself with two years of tuition at a law school with the risk that she would not finish.
Strike four was an apparent lack of a marriage partner who could help provide a financial cushion in the case of a career plan failure or at least career counseling well grounded in reality.
Life is actually like a baseball game in which you must score a hit or lose at your first time at bat. strikeouts are usually rewarded with poverty and bankrupcy, not another chance at bat later in the game.
Finally, let’s posit the same story, but the change the gender of the protagonist from female to male; from Cathy to Carl.
Would the story elicit the same amount of sympathy from the average reader?
I would posit in the negative. The reason is that Carl not having a good paying job is in modern American culture perceived as a failure and the failure is perceived as his own fault. Carl could always find a good paying job working in (for example) sheetrock (that is, a trade).
A trade job would have in theory been open to Cathy. she was born one year before the Pill became available and came of age roughly at the same time as women’s lib. Any job a man can do a woman can do, or so our culture now tells us, right? So, Cathy could have worked sheetrock to make more money but she chose to stay in a (lower paying, future-limited) office job.
Strike five.
I am led to conclude that the story is a manipulative tear-jerking incompletely described or manufactured character.
I imagine that there are many people out there who have been screwed by our government (IMHO starting with the Clinton era) and our collective cultural fiction of unfulfilled promises to our younger generation, and who deserve our sympathy. But Cathy seems more to me like a semi-fictional character aimed at generating political support for a policy (college debt forgiveness) which for Cathy at least may have been a bad idea to begin with.
Seems to be the best option.
Technically true, but a significant portion of the population is indistinguishable from "average". Those that stand out on the left side of the bell curve are only about 30%. That's a huge number of people.
“The halcyon days of 50s aren’t coming back “
How come real per capita income in the USA has quadrupled since the 1950’s, but people in 2024 just have “unrealistic expectations” about living the same as a blue collar worker back then ?
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA/
On college debt, in my opinion, universities should be made like Germany. You go there to study, that’s it. No fancy sport teams or scholarships, no luxury dormitories.
A 1950 dollar is worth $12.95 today.
At the same time automation has increased productivity.
And people have higher prices.
“Real per capita GDP”
Real means adjusted for inflation.
1. If a course in financial literacy were a requirement for high school graduation she would be better prepared for life.
2. If the Social Security "surplus" had been invested in an index fund, instead of being used for pork barrel projects, SS benefits would produce a livable income.
3. If student loans were restricted to only majors which had some chance of producing enough income to repay the loan, the entire country would be better off.
My out-go exceeds my in-come only because I dump everything into investments. What I earn %-wise from them exceeds what I pay on CC and margin debt so.... If I have to bite the bullet I have an investment account that will be sacrificed. I make sure that my debt remains below its asset level. Yeah, the taxes will be brutal tho.
I’ve been on both sides, and when you’re on the down side, you learn a lot about human nature.
My County would’ve paid a higher salary for achieving one’s Master’s degree.
A lot of Boomers including many at FR supported offshoring our manufacturing and tech jobs so they could save a few pennies on foreign made goods. I guess none of them gave much thought to what they would be buying those goods with once the high paying jobs were offshored.
I don't know that she is one of those who supported these trade deals, but many in the same boat did. How are those cheaper prices working out for them?
63 is hardly “peak” boomer. It’s almost “last boomer.”
Companies pay what the market will support. If your son (or anyone else) will work for that amount…that is the market.
Why would a company pay more than the market price?
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