Slipping Validated
Yo, remember this post from last November about how this 40-something is slipping behind the parents? Well, an interview with an author over at Salon seems to validate what’s happening.
The financial maladies of the so-called middle class involve wide structural changes to the American economy and are not just the fault of individuals. (Yes, this was obstensibly written for a suddenly insecure white audience to whom all this is news. But damn, even I as a post civil rights African American, was optimistic just like the white folks. Guess I should have known better. LOL.)
Follwing is a letter posted in response. The second paragraph of this statement validates what I’ve suspected:
There may be no fixing it. Already it is too late to prevent the decline of the US middle class. From here it’s mostly a matter of how little the average American will settle for, and experience suggests Americans may be prepared to settle for very little.
Most of history is characterized by a small, wealthy elite ruling the great mass of poorer people. Even US history before WWII is that way. The prosperity of US middle class of the last 50-60 years is the product of the reforms of FDR, but that relative prosperity is suspected to be merely an aberration of history.
The Wealthy and Powerful Powers That Be have militated against those reforms ever since they were passed. Money, unlike water, naturally runs uphill unless effective mechanisms are in place to keep some of it in the lower classes, and those mechanisms - minimum wage laws, higher education, taxes on the rich, labor unions - are increasingly minimized where they are not compromised outright.
This entire article mostly provides indications that those mechanisms have been compromised, but it tends to be a symptomatic treatment and does not directly address the root causes: the rich, represented by corporations and their lobbyists, largely control all three branches of the federal government, and government policies favor the wealthy elite over nearly everybody else.
The last time the country was in this situation it required the desperation of the Depression to motivate change. This time, that may not be sufficient, because the wealthy and powerful who profit from this situation are likely to be able to prevent those kinds of reforms.
Then there’s this:
The so called Greatest Generation as well as the Korean War Generation right after it are in fact anomalies. No where else in the history of people was there an entire generation that voted and awarded itself such an enormous bag of free stuff. From SSI to early retirement to rich union plans to subsidized healthcare, IRA’s, 401Ks, the GI bill, massive tax breaks, to the greatest long run surge in property values from 1955 to 1995, Medicare, Medicaid, and long slow retirement where expensive and extensive travel is the norm not the exception and it goes on from age 55 to age 85. Not only did those generations not take care of their own parents, outsourcing them to nursing homes, but they didn’t take care of their children’s generation either - letting them take out loans for the their college or letting the government pick up the tab, so long as they got out of the house at 18.
Yeah. And we all know that African Americans were largely excluded from grabbing from that goody bag. At least until much later.
As I commented before, my father asked me if my last employer offered a pension. I almost told him he should join Steve Harvey, Cedric, and D.L. on the Kings of Comedy circuit because he had jokes. You see, my dad was able to get into an electric utility in 1971 and get out 30 years later with a pension. Hmm, a pension? What the hell is that?
Happy reading.
Peace.
Pension? Yeah your dad has jokes. I remember my first job out of graduate school was as a teacher. I did that for less than two years and took another job making 20K more. My nana was undone. She couldn’t wrap her mind around the idea that I would give up the security of being a teacher, getting a pension, etc. Then a year and a half later, I went on to my third job. By this time, I seriously had to sit down and explain to her that it’s not like it used to be. I have to be responsible for me. No employer is giving me anything and I darn sure couldn’t expect the government to still be dishing out benefits by the time I retire.
Hostess, you are right on point. My dad actually looked shocked when I told him this firm offered no pensions, only 401Ks. (Well at least they didn’t offer pensions to most of the workers -maybe the CEO had one.) Until a few years ago, he would criticize me by saying that if I had stayed with our hometown newspaper, I’d have 20-something years, the implicating being I should have stayed. And I’d have spent 20-something years wondering “what if” ? Yes, I miss newspapers, but every day brings news of the gutting of one more newsroom, which made me glad I got out. You’re correct in that we have to be responsible for ourselves, which is why I moved from NJ to the DC area in the first place after this latest layoff.
That said, I want to address your comment you telling nana about it being not like it used to be - should folks bother banding together to fight the elite to restore the post-WWII benefits? Thanks for visiting.
Peace.
Comment by Hostess — May 15, 2008 @ 9:53 am
I think this is interesting. There was also an article a few months ago about how something like 60% of our generation that were in middle class homes are no longer middle class. I wondered how that happens when children are supposed to do ‘better than’ their parents. I think it may largely be due to complacency as well as a sense of entitlement.
Kids today expect to graduate college and have the same type of lifestyle to which they’re accustomed (on their parents’ dime). However, they fail to realize that their parents didn’t always live like that. My parents lived in a small apartment when they got married then saved up and moved to a small house. A few years later they ‘moved up’ into a larger house. They never had a luxury car and kept the cars they did have for years before buying a new one.
Now we have 22-23 year olds who expect fabulous loft living and a Lexus by the time the ink dries on their diplomas. But let’s face it, unless you’re a corporate lawyer or i-banker, you don’t have the salary to support that lifestyle. Then one day, they wake up and they’re 45 years old and heavily in debt with no retirement savings to speak of. Unfortunate, yes; unavoidable; no.
Ms. Savvy, welcome back. I lived at home for the first few years out of school; and that was a mistake. Being at home totally skewed my perspective of reality. I spent like crazy when I should have been saving and had debt by the time I married five years later. On the flip side, I had a paid summer internship in Florida between my junior and senior years and that was the one time I carefully watched my pennies. I was so good I actually had a few hundred dollars saved by the summer’s end. I now wish I had struck out on my own immediately after graduation so those frugal habits would have stuck.
I can’t speak to the expectations of kids today, but when I graduated in 1981, I don’t think many of my cohort expected to live large right out the gate, but I think we did expect to do as well as our parents — down the road. I don’t think anyone of my generation forsaw the layoffs and the general shifting of financial risk by government and business to individuals like we see today.
Comment by savvy — May 15, 2008 @ 11:32 am
Okay Blogsome ate my last comment. In short, I think a large part of the problem is complacency and a sense of entitlement. Young people come out of school instantly living beyond their means. They wake up one day at age 45 with lots of debt and little retirement savings. It’s definitely unfortunate but it is NOT unavoidable.
As you can see, your first comment did make it.
Comment by savvy — May 15, 2008 @ 11:36 am
I’ve worked my entire career in the public sector. Fed, state, city, Fed. I’ve always had the benefit of that protection. My parents were both Civil Servants their whole working life. Originally I went to the public sector because of the type of engineering I wanted to do. But once the family came along, i dared not move. I wanted the security for them. The funny thing is i steer my kids away from working for ANYBODY. I’m supporting their entrepreneurism now. I don’t want them to become drones, dancing to somebody elses beat. So now I stay here for the guaranteed income so that my kids will have the seed money to be free. I kind of feel like Jill Nelson’s “Voluntary Slavery”
Hey, Philly, I feel the same way about my kids. I’d like them to be able to march to the beat of their own drummer. (So when they make it big, they can take care of their parents in their old ages, LOL!) There are times I wish I had gone into the public sector, but I didn’t know any better 28 years ago, when I graduated.
And I loved Volunteer Slavery. Ms. Nelson named a few names with whom I’m personally acquainted. Thanks for visiting!
Comment by onefromphilly — May 16, 2008 @ 11:25 am
One of the challenges of my generation (X) will be how to navigate this new economic terrain in a way that allows us to have and raise families with at least as much as our parents gave us. One thing I think will help is a return to agrarianism in some cases. I know this sounds far-fetched, but as things shift and the environment deteriorates, I think it will be more and more important to have a piece of earth that one can farm and grow her own food if need be. I plan to keep my day job as long as I can, but I find the need to create multiple streams of income for myself not only for daily survival but also in order to save to maintain the type of lifestyle I desire. My dad always says that the worst thing in the world is to be poor.
Hey, A, welcome to my spot! You bring up an excellent point! A return to agrarianism is a great idea, considering that some of our elders (at least mine, anyway, including my mom) were brought up on farms. Yeah, they may have been poor, but they rarely went hungry. And the multiple streams of income are key. As you might know by reading this blog, I’ve found out the hard way that relying on a single gig as a source of income is at best short-sighted and at worst dangerous. Don’t be a stranger! Take care.
Comment by A — May 20, 2008 @ 3:44 pm