Meet the Greedy Grandparents

Slate ^ | Dec. 10, 2003 | Steve Chapman

[luckydevi]

When Social Security was founded, offering a federal pension at age 65, most of the people born 65 years earlier couldn't take advantage of it. They were dead. For the lucky ones who lived long enough to collect, the new pension system, founded in 1935, was meant as a modest support in the brief span before they passed on to glory. No more. Since then, life expectancy at birth in America has increased to more than 77 years. For the majority of people, that means lots of time being supported by the government. A working life is now just a tedious interregnum between two long periods of comfortable dependence.

America's elderly have never had it so good. They enjoy better health than any previous generation of old people, high incomes and ample assets, access to a host of medical treatments that not only keep them alive but let them enjoy their extra years, and a riotous multitude of ways to spoil their grandchildren. Still they are not content. From gratefully accepting a basic level of assistance back in the early decades of Social Security, America's elderly have come to expect everything their durable little hearts desire.

They often get their way, as they did recently when years of complaints finally induced Congress and the president to agree to bear much of the cost of their prescription drugs. From the tenor of the debate, you would think these medications were a terrible burden inflicted by an uncaring fate. In fact, past generations of old people didn't have to make room in their budgets for pharmaceuticals because there weren't many to buy. If you suffered from high cholesterol, chronic heartburn, or depression, you were left to primitive remedies, or none. Today, there are pills and potions for just about any complaint—except the chronic complaint that many of them are pricey. It's not enough to be blessed with medical miracles. Modern seniors also want them cheap, if not free.

That's on top of everything else they get. Retirement benefits used to be just one of the federal government's many maternal functions. But in recent years, the federal government has begun to look like an appendage of Social Security. In 2000, 35 percent of all federal spending dollars went to Social Security and Medicare. By 2040, barring an increase in total federal outlays, they'll account for more than 60 percent of the budget. And that's before you add in the prescription drug benefit. Most of the projected growth is due to rising health-care costs, not to the aging of the population, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Retirees eyeing this bounty feel no pangs of guilt, thanks to their unshakable conviction that they earned every dime by sweat and toil. In fact, economists Laurence Kotlikoff and Jagadeesh Gokhale say that a typical man reaching age 65 today will get a net windfall of more than $70,000 over his remaining years. A luckless 25-year-old, by contrast, can count on paying $322,000 more in payroll taxes than he will ever get back in benefits.

Why do we keep indulging the grizzled ones? The most obvious reason is that they are so tireless and well-organized in demanding alms. No politician ever lost an election because he was too generous to little old ladies. A lot of people are suckered by the image of financially strapped seniors, even though the poverty rate among those 65 and over has been lower than that for the population as a whole since 1974. But it's not just the interests of old coots that are being served here. Young and middle-aged adults tend to look kindly upon lavish federal generosity to Grandma because it means she won't be hitting them up for help. Paying taxes may be onerous, but it's nothing compared to the cost, financial and otherwise, of adding a mother-in-law suite to the house. Working-age folks also assume that whatever they bestow upon today's seniors will be likewise bestowed on them, and in the not too distant future. It's not really fair to blame the greatest generation for this extravagance. They are guilty, but they have an accomplice.

It's surely no coincidence that the new drug benefit is being enacted just as the first baby boomers are nearing retirement age. Nor can it be forgotten that the organization formerly known as the American Association of Retired People—it's now just AARP—has lately broadened its membership to include all the boomers it can get its wrinkled hands on. AARP, to the surprise of many, endorsed the plan. And what a surprise it is that the prescription drug program, which will cost some $400 billion over the next 10 years, could balloon to $2 trillion in the 10 years following that—when guess-who will be collecting. You would expect taxpayers in their peak earning years to recoil in horror from a program that will vastly increase Washington's fiscal obligations for decades to come. In fact, they—make that we—can see that the time to lock in a prosperous old age is now, before twentysomethings know what's hit them.

Boomers have gotten our way every since we arrived in this world, and the onset of gray hair, bifocals, and arthritis is not going to moderate our unswerving self-indulgence. We are the same people, after all, who forced the lowering of the drinking age when we were young, so we could drink, and forced it back up when we got older, so our kids couldn't. On top of that, we're used to the best of everything, and plenty of it. We weren't dubbed the Me Generation because we neglect our own needs, Junior. If politicians think the current geezers are greedy, they ain't seen nothin' yet.

But responsible middle-aged sorts may yet be brought to their senses when they realize that their usual impulse to get all they can will sooner or later collide with another boomer obsession: the insatiable desire to furnish our kids with every advantage known to humanity. Load Social Security with more obligations than it can bear, and our precious offspring will be squashed under the weight. To fund all the obligations of the Social Security system, payroll taxes will have to more than double by 2040—on top of whatever it costs to buy all those prescription drugs. At that point, our children will realize the trick we've pulled and start to hate our guts. That would be a cruel blow to a generation that thinks of itself as the most wonderful parents in history.

To avoid that fate, boomers need to recognize the need to stop writing checks that today's youngsters will have to cash. With the eager help of our own parents, we've created an entitlement that is fast becoming unaffordable. To bring Social Security into conformity with reality, we'll have to resign ourselves to a higher retirement age reflecting our prospective vigor and life expectancy. We'll have to accept more stringent controls on Medicare spending and take more responsibility for our own medical needs. We'll have to abandon our assumption that the point of the health-care system is to keep each of us alive forever. At some point—don't worry, not anytime soon—we will have to embrace a duty to stop functioning as a fiscal burden on our children and start serving as a nutritional resource for worms.

[pogo101]

Social Security isn't the only program with which the elder generations have been using to rape the younger one.

I am entirely in sympathy with you. My preferred metaphor (to "rape") is that of vampirism. And eventually we become vampires ourselves ...

[stevio]

The WWII generation may have a legitimate claim at SS as they fought against Hitler and the such. But what did the Baby Boomers do? Help bring us what their parents fought against. I don't want to pay for them, and I especially don't want my kids paying for them. BTW I'm on the tail end of the BB generation.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Funny article to be coming from Slate. They supported this stuff.

[wtc911]

You need a time out son, or maybe a little therapy to help you get through this oedipal thing you got going.

[wtc911]

You certainly are on the tail end of something.

[thoughtomator]

Revenge is the best therapy. Hope the boomers are prepared, because when they are weak and no longer able to defend themselves, those of us who have to live with their legacy will treat them as they treated the weak and powerless themselves. (Check out your local abortuary if you need a sample.)

I'm solidly pro-life, but when it comes to euthanasia for baby boomers I will be conspicuously absent from the opposition.

[thoughtomator]

The baby boomers paved the way for, among other atrocities, Bill Clinton, and that minor little matter of killing 40 million children for their personal convenience.

[douglas1]

I understand that we will soon be sending retirement checks down to our wonderful neighbors across the border, thank you GWB, this admn is full of lunatics.

[wtc911]

Someone must have really touched you the wrong way. Far too much emotional pathology on display here.

[cupcakes]

Young and middle-aged adults tend to look kindly upon lavish federal generosity to Grandma because it means she won't be hitting them up for help. Paying taxes may be onerous, but it's nothing compared to the cost, financial and otherwise, of adding a mother-in-law suite to the house. Working-age folks also assume that whatever they bestow upon today's seniors will be likewise bestowed on them, and in the not too distant future. It's not really fair to blame the greatest generation for this extravagance. They are guilty, but they have an accomplice
__________

This part I disagree with. Plenty of folks would be happy to build an addition for the mother or mil as long as she would be willing to add something to the family and not treat it as a free ride. My mother has lived with us for two years and she broke the agreement that she live here rent free but was to help with the cleaning and the children so now she pays us rent. We opened our home to our mother and all she does is take. She's a baby boomer. I'm sorry, I only have anectdotal experience, but I do think this generation of people are some of the most greedy around. Some of the stuff they did to me, I can't bear to see happen to them--no home, back turned on them. Yet when you extend them help they behave as if they should not do anything in return or show any gratiousness.
Sorry, this is a sore spot for me. Perhaps I have incredibly greedy parents, but I don't think I'm alone in this. I resent that my parents generation want to suck us dry and take from their grandchildren a secure future. I resent that they do this while enjoying travel and all kinds of material amenities. It will be my children who won't have squat when they are old because they were robbed of their ability to save. They will be the ones trying to actually survive on SS alone.

[cupcakes]

Agreed. I've been for something that looks like this as well and I am a 30 something too.

[genefromjersey]

Aw gee ! What a (censored) shame !

Damn greedy old grandparents won't just quietly jump off a cliff, or commit hara kiri ,or something - taking care,of course, to leave their ill-gotten wealth to their children.

What's that you say ?

They don't HAVE any great wealth ??

They spent most of it on their children and grandchildren???

Humph ! Guess they were STUPID, too !!!

[thoughtomator]

This emotional pathology is shared across an entire generation. I know few who feel differently about the boomer generation.

The real emotional pathology that needs investigation is the astonishing narcissism of the baby boomers.

I assume from your response that you are a baby boomer, because everyone else has at least a basic understanding of just how horrific the boomer legacy has been. Boomers themselves, self-absorption being their defining trait, would naturally be ignorant of this.

Take a step back and see what you are suggesting. Murdering 40 million children is not a pathology, but well-justified anger over it is? That's no different in nature to suggesting that the problem with the Holocaust lies with the Jews.

[optik_b]

Don't worry old people like yourself have much more power than the youth. Rather than take away your entitlement programs, the politicians are working hard to get your votes since old people vote at a higher percentage than the young.

Basically this will be the first generation to rob from the young to fund retirements golfing in Florida and Arizona. Democracy is not a guarantee for the moral correct thing being done...

[mewzilla]

I like the term greedy geezers better. Grandparents sounds less pejorative.

[cupcakes]

Oh Maria, blow it out of your butt and speak for yourself. I am a 30 something and I didn't get any of what you mentioned. I rode the bus for several years until I could afford a car independently and qualify for the loan. I had to resort to living with people I didn't much like to be able to have a roof over my head. My mother couldn't even pull herself away from the mirror long enough to tell me how to manage menses bleeding or shave my legs. In fact, my parents who didn't even give me the skills I needed to survive(I learned the hard way) were too damn busy taking care of themselves. They were counting on their fingers and toes until the days the dreaded children were gone. That 80's accesory they grew weary of. And for the kids I know who got that. They would have preferred a parent who gave a crap to all the stuff thrown at them to make up for it.

Ungrateful my tush. My mother who could have cared less for us is now living in *MY* home on *MY* dollar all obtained with no help financially or guidance from either one of my parents. She's still as self-centered as ever and it hurts like hell to know the type of person she is is the same person I knew as a teen. She can't even bring herself to play the grandmother role because she's not ready to be a grandma yet--rolling eyes. Yet, I allow her in my home and saved her tush when she was in trouble. A lot more than she ever did for me by a long shot. Spin your ungrateful child crap somewhere else. I for one am resentful that I am not only paying for my self-centered set of parental units but probably a couple of others as well.

[cupcakes]

Exactly right. Because not all of us were spoiled and while our parents were hording $$ away for their own fun later, some of us were working in convenience stores to start our lives.

[cupcakes]

Thanks for saying that. This is what I was thinking.

[Mr. Bird]

Another thing I was thinking (don't we all just sit around and mull over public policy?). Why not impose a mandatory retirement savings percentage for workers until they turn 30? Say, force the young workforce to funnel a significant portion of their gross pay into a retirement account. At age 30, the contribution becomes discretionary. The money is the individual's, but completely untouchable until the agreed upon arbitrary retirement age.

That would at least provide for the "safety net" so many bleeding hearts say we need. Personally, I would prefer total elimination of this type of thing, but if we're going to have it, the scheme needs to be improved upon.

[bobo1]

The problem is rather obvious. If a corporation or a union ran their pension plan the way that the government administers Social Security, the executives would be imprisoned for fraud and misappropriation of funds.

If my SS "forced contributions" were given to a private investment organization I would retire a millionaire on what I have is "contributed" and that of my employer. Living on what SS actually pays will put you well below the poverty level.

I disagree strongly with calling the "baby boomers" greedy. That is confusing the issue and laying the blame where it does not belong. The blame should be placed squarely on the shoulders of Congress/Government. They have betrayed the American people, demanding mandatory compliance and then squandering the proceeds.

If I purchased a retirement/disability plan when I was eighteen years old and payed into it for fifty years, contributing $200,000 dollars, which would have grown to over a million at simple interest, am I greedy to want more that a pitiful $1,000 a month?

Yes, I have grandchildren and children, and they will pay dearly for the looting that has taken place over the years by the criminal, liberal minded politicians.

I pray that the anger will be directed at those that deserve the name, "greedy", not at those who are not getting what they paid for.

Pitting one generation against another is not a solution, but mere smoke and mirrors sent to hide the real culprit.

I hope that I see the day that my children and grandchildren will say enough is enough and refuse to have their money stolen from them by corrupt politicians to buy votes.

I won't be "greedy" however. I will merely move in with one of them. I have made prior arrangements in case the government can no longer honor it's commitments.

Let's just put the blame where it belongs.

blessings,

bobo1