Many older Americans are living a desperate, nomadic life

Market Watch ^ | Nov 7, 2017 | RICHARD EISENBERG

[huldah1776]

In her powerful new book, “Nomadland,” award-winning journalist Jessica Bruder reveals the dark, depressing and sometimes physically painful life of a tribe of men and women in their 50s and 60s who are — as the subtitle says — “surviving America in the twenty-first century.” Not quite homeless, they are “houseless,” living in secondhand RVs, trailers and vans and driving from one location to another to pick up seasonal low-wage jobs, if they can get them, with little or no benefits.

The “workamper” jobs range from helping harvest sugar beets to flipping burgers at baseball spring training games to Amazon’s AMZN, -0.24% “CamperForce,” seasonal employees who can walk the equivalent of 15 miles a day during Christmas season pulling items off warehouse shelves and then returning to frigid campgrounds at night. Living on less than $1,000 a month, in certain cases, some have no hot showers. As Bruder writes, these are “people who never imagined being nomads.” Many saw their savings wiped out during the Great Recession or were foreclosure victims and, writes Bruder, “felt they’d spent too long losing a rigged game.” Some were laid off from high-paying professional jobs. Few have chosen this life. Few think they can find a way out of it. They’re downwardly mobile older Americans in mobile homes.

[albie]

I have good lenders.

[ETL]

I vaguely remember it. But I don't think the one you posted was a hardtop convertible.

In any case, here's a '57 Skyliner hardtop convertible...

[huldah1776]

Are the Jewish people being fruitful and multiplying or sacrificing their children? The Biblical consequence of nationally legalized child sacrifice is invasion and conquest. They Babylonians invaded Judah after one reprieve when they stopped for a couple of generations.

[sparklite2]

No, the Packard was a rag top.

We had a family friend who was semi-wealthy and bought a new Dodge every year. In 1956 they bought a Dodge Texan, which I am surprised to learn, only 289 regional models built for and sold to Texans only.

Anyway, it had an under-dash 45 rpm record player that slid out to put a record on. You’d think a player in a car would have a hard time keeping the stylus in its track. What they did was to put so much pressure onto the arm, that after a half-dozen times playing the same record, the record’s grooves were worn out. LOL

[ETL]

[sparklite2]

Magnificent.

When the turbine was first being built, and before the heat exchanger was created, the only real problem with the car was that when you stopped at a traffic light, the guy behind you would have his bumper welded together.

[ro_dreaming]

Possibly, but after 5 years of trying, begging her to go back on her Zoloft, and counseling, and to our pastor, I gave up.

[ETL]

Too bad. Very sorry to hear that. Best of luck in whatever you do.

[Alas Babylon!]

And the benefits!

I lost my full time job and was put on part time because of Obamacare. I’m on Tricare, I don’t need it, I aid. “Ah, but if you ever did, or even asked us, we’d have to provide.{ they said.

So... Part time gets no medical, can’t ask for it, and that’s where they put me.

I quit the part time and came back as a contractor on my own contract. Now make more than my full time job. However, that’s coming to an end soon. I’m retiring from my old full/part time position. At lease I’ll get my full time high year of earnings (HYOE)retirement. It is an early retirement, but every year my HYOE goes down.

[Garth Tater]

"Sounds like a lot of poor life choices."

There was a time when a workingman could save for retirement and then expect to live comfortably in his old age. If you had put half of your savings in a bank account making 2% and half of your savings in the stock market making somewhere around a 6% annual return you would have a blended 4% return on "safe" investments and every dollar that you saved when you were 16 would become 8 dollars by the time you were seventy. But now, with the Fed's ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy) and with banks testing the waters on negative interest rates and with inflation running somewhere around 3% per year (and don't forget to factor in an occasional stock market crash or a short bout of high inflation) every dollar you save when you are 16 will be worth only 25 cents when you are seventy. In other words - saving for your old age in the traditional manner doesn't work. That life was stolen from us. To say that people arriving in their old age with insufficient assets to live comfortably is the result of "a lot of poor life choices" are the words of a lucky man and a man that does not know what is happening in the world.

[Yaelle]

I know. Imagine how much help we could give to seniors or poor struggling Americans if Mexico would not just shrug and outsource their poverty. And if we would just stop feeding the illegals. Why do we take it up the rear all the time?

(The answer is fear of being called racists, what a cheap tool to use against us, but it’s successful)

[Undecided 2012]

I don’t know. I retired at 46, 15 years ago. I still live below my means but sadly I’ve earned zero interest for over 10 years now.
I live in Texas in a rural area. I carry an HVAC license and could work if I wanted but once my son had a stroke I just shut it down. It just was no fun doing it myself anymore.
Sure I get a small pension but live below that. I’ve always paid cash for everything and never had a loan.

[ottbmare]

Sounds like a lot of poor life choices.

Not necessarily. Prudent people can sometimes have their careful plans and wise choices derailed by catastrophe. A child's cancer. An auto accident. A hurricane. Death, divorce, disaster. I sometimes think that God permits hardship to some of us who are feeling comfortable and secure.

I do notice that many Freepers are very critical of people who end up in sad circumstances. Sometimes, it's true, bad choices play a role. But it often appears that Freepers are very defensive about these events; they seem to believe their planning, their work, their decisions guarantee against falling into pitiable conditions. And that's just not true.

[ichabod1]

Best of luck. A lot of us just got cut out halfway through the Obama years. That’s why there are 93 million people “out of the work force”. Of course we’re still working, doing something. We just don’t count in the government’s numbers anymore.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks huldah1776.