Posted on 06/15/2015 12:22:04 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
It’s no secret that the American middle class has been on the ropes for a while now. The problem isn’t just a crippling recession and an economic “recovery” that has mostly gone to the richest one percent, but the larger shifting of wealth from the middle to the very top that’s taken place since the late ‘70s. Add in things like the dismantling of unions that has accelerated apace since Ronald Reagan crushed the air-traffic controllers, and we’ve seen the middle class more solid in places like Canada, Germany, and Scandinavia, and begin to grow in a number of nations even while it shrinks here. Economists like Thomas Piketty thinks the process is inevitable with global capitalism, while others – the equally wise Joseph Stiglitz, for example – think the balance can be restored if we can find the political will.
It turns out that those concerned about a tattered middle class are right about most of it, but overlooking one thing: Boomers – or rather, a particular strain of Boomer and near-Boomer – are doing great. That is, if you were born in the ‘40s, you are going to be the last American generation to enjoy a robust safety net, and your gray years will be far more comfortable than those a decade older or younger.
Here’s a New York Times story, which looks at “the 25 million Americans now between the ages of 65 and 74”:
Supported by income from Social Security, pensions and investments, as well as an increasing number of paychecks from delaying retirement, older people not only weathered the economic downturn that began in 2007 but made significant gains, a New York Times analysis of government data has found.
And despite our generally ornery Xer jingoism, we’re going to concede something here. We’ve noticed that our friends who we could call “young Boomers” – born in the late ‘50s and early ’60s – are often far less privileged and spoiled than those born in the years right after World War II. This younger group grew up or came of ago, after all, in the ‘70s and ‘80s, as the postwar boom was fading, colleges were becoming expensive, and the Reagan Revolution was pulling the rug out from under the middle class.
And it turns out that those young Boomers are indeed a kind of transition generation. It’s the group now retiring that will take most of the spoils of the U.S. postwar boom and leave the rest of us with scraps:
In the past, the elderly were usually poorer than other age groups. Now, they are the last generation to widely enjoy a traditional pension, and are prime beneficiaries of a government safety net targeted at older Americans. They also have profited from the long rise in real estate prices that preceded the recession. As a result, more seniors now fall into the middle class — defined in this case between the 40th and 80th income percentile — than ever before.
If you wonder why you are working so hard to get a job, please note that a lot of these guys are sitting on theirs or at least working part-time. (It reminds us of the Onion story: “Parents With More Vacation Time, Financial Resources Want To Know When Son Will Come Home For A Visit.”)
The Times piece shows how a variety of Americans in that sub-generation is faring. Some are struggling, like the rest of us. But between the fancy cruises and fat pensions and gated communities and golf courses and vintage ‘57s Chevys, it’s not a world that younger Americans have any reason to expect. In fact, it sounds like something from a museum of postwar affluence.
So part of us is glad the American middle class will go out with a boom, so to speak. We don’t begrudge these people – our teachers and professors, our older friends, our parents and other relatives – comfort in their gray years. The way Americans, in the days before social security and other protections, lost their footings in old age was simply inhumane. But why couldn’t the prosperity be spread so that those born in the ‘50s, ‘60s, and after can enjoy the same stability and wealth?
Well, this is a complicated one, and we’ll nod to the usual suspects: Globalization, technology, and the depletion of natural resources (especially energy) meant that the postwar boom would not last forever.
But you know what else the original Boomers brought us? Despite their dabbling with progressivism and hippie utopianism, this group served as the shock troops for market-worshipping neoliberalism and the Reagan-Thatcher shift in the ‘70s and ‘80s. They gave us junk bonds and the privatization push and Gordon Gekko. Some of them went into the corporate world and started dismantling.
Let’s hope they enjoy their retirements. But these gray Boomers and grayer Silents – not all of them, but enough to do substantial damage – put forces in motion that mean for the rest of us, the twilight years will be significantly less cozy.
Scott Timberg is a staff writer for Salon, focusing on culture. A longtime arts reporter in Los Angeles who has contributed to the New York Times, he runs the blog Culture Crash. He's the author of the new book, "Culture Crash: The Killing of the Creative Class."
You bet, people in their 90s today are still collecting SS on top of the retirement pensions they were afforded back in the former late great America.
Right, it’s time to get back to strategies that worked for the prior generations that built this country.
Big Government buried the middle class. Period.
“My point is that most families today who want to live on one income, and are willing to live the same lifestyle that young families did in the ‘50s, could probably do it.”
It’s a nice story, but it isn’t true. Where I live, the little bungalows from that era are still everywhere, the market is full of them. Still, you just can’t buy one with a single income, unless you are lucky enough to make 6 figures.
Newer or larger homes? Forget about it!
One problem with replicating that scenario today is that many, if not most, children today do not grow up in intact (two-parent) families. Divorce (or single parenthood in general) is a leading cause of child poverty, but few people want to acknowledge that.
You bet. That and corporate big biz greed. The same SOB's who hire tens of millions of illegals while forcing middle America to subsidize their low wage workers.
That’s what communism is. They destroy the middle class and replace it with the proletariat.
I think you missed the mark. When the problem is isolated to this country, the problem is localized to us.
Add in things like the dismantling of unions that has accelerated apace since Ronald Reagan crushed the air-traffic controllers, and we’ve seen the middle class more solid in places like Canada, Germany, and Scandinavia, and begin to grow in a number of nations even while it shrinks here.
The article completely demolishes the blame game on the left.
"But you know what else the original Boomers brought us? Despite their dabbling with progressivism and hippie utopianism, this group served as the shock troops for market-worshipping neoliberalism and the Reagan-Thatcher shift in the ‘70s and ‘80s. They gave us junk bonds and the privatization push and Gordon Gekko. Some of them went into the corporate world and started dismantling. "
Again, the problem is localized to our dismantling any controls over greed capitalism. Which has now succeeded in ruining capitalism itself. Yes, the middle class is traded out in today's U.S. business model. Now doing the best in the world. But the price paid is that the middle class can no longer depend on greed capitalism for jobs but resort to the government. The baby has gone out with the wash water. God Help Us.
Ya, when things get ugly, no money, lack of jobs, etc. marriages fall apart...This is no secret.
Your childhood experience was almost exactly like mine and those of most of my Boomer friends and all of my first cousins. Hardly like being born on “third base.”
Seniors living today in the middle class worked hard all their lives and saved. They postponed buying houses and other big ticket items until they had cash for them. They postponed having children until they had good jobs. So now those seniors who carried this country on their backs for the past 50 years are now public enemy number 1?
Give me a break. Maybe the reason the middle class is shrinking is because they are taxed to death to pay for younger generations who are sitting on their cans and living irresponsible lifestyles.
Why do liberals covet all the wealth the seniors have accrued by the sweat of their brows, while they strongly advocate that people who are contributing absolutely nothing get a big slice of the pie?
(Rhetorical question - we all know the answer is because seniors vote for conservatives and do nothings vote for liberals.)
I have paid into the government ponzi scheme all my life knowing full well it will collapse just as I turn 65. Those that paid in pennies collected hundred dollar bills for decades. I paid in hundred dollar bills for the privilege of getting screwed out of bennies I earned. I hope you enjoyed my retirement money. I will have to work till I die.
http://www.generationjones.com/?page_id=26
This explains my generation.
-PJ
Through the family unit comes nationalism, enemy of the globalists. To remove nationalism and supplant with globalization you need more supporters/ drones who could care less about the country and more for "one world government". To accomplish this "it takes a village" and so the destruction of the American family continues on all fronts.
They should change their name to "non-CIS-Libertine".
Translation:
They have, we want it, we should take it.
I did continue, but at least the dead give away did come early in the screed.
I have a degree in EE, yes, it was difficult— I also got a credential to teach — less difficult, harder to find work.
Our son got a degree in business, did not fancy working as hard as his boomer dad. Ended up learning programming and now is an analyst and Visual Basic master.
So there is the answer. do’t go for EE, go for CS. Master a programming language and get back in the rat race.
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