Saturday, May 6, 2017

What's in a generation?


In the post below on “elders,” there was a bit of talk about the “others.”  Let’s say “youngers” (20-40) and “middlers” (40-60).  We can debate when elder begins, even if, rather than birthdays, it is a state of mind.  

Do youngers have a dramatically different generational sense of themselves and their world? They were born between 1977 and 1997, hence in the U.S., they were Reagan babies and Clinton adolescents. The wars of GW Bush drew some of them into war in Afghanistan and Iraq. When and if they went to college, many were saddled with debt. They probably had more contact with drugs and drug culture than earlier generations, but also more knowledge of computers, gaming, internet, and social media. The youngers among them may have felt the financial crisis at the beginning of their working lives. The economic, political, sexual, and entertainment culture in which they swim seems a sharp contrast to that of the “elders,” (over 65). Such generalizations are usually open to big exceptions. And I haven’t touched on any of the positives in their growing up.

The middlers were born between 1957 and 1977; the tail end of the baby boom and the beginning of the baby bust (1963). Given the dates, most would not have fought in Vietnam. They would have benefitted from the new insistence that everyone had to go to college: tuition was still reasonable, especially at state schools and the student debt problem doesn’t seems to be as pressing as it has since become. Very young in the sixties, how were they influenced by the Civil Rights movement, the anti-war and pro-war movements, LBJ, and Nixon (China, Watergate, impeachment)?  They may have started their work lives when good-paying jobs were still available, but are seeing retirement years as more difficult than they may have imagined—unless they’re fabulously rich (like you know who).

So it looks to me like the current crop of elders may be sailing into the best time in U.S. history to be 65+ (Social Security, Medicare, wheel chairs and curb cutaways, kneeling buses, and the 10 percent grocery discount on Tuesdays and Thursdays).

How wrong is this analysis?

35 comments:

  1. They [Youngers] probably had more contact with drugs and drug culture than earlier generations

    Is this so? It seemed like drug use was pretty prevalent in the generation before that.

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    1. If this is correct, we Boomers out-doped the Millennials on everything but prescription pain killers: http://drugabuse.com/featured/drug-and-alcohol-abuse-across-generations/

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    2. Yeah, that sounds accurate. Growing in California, drug use was ubiquitous among my friends (me too).

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  2. Don't forgert the dollar coffee at McDonalds. And cheap Tuesday movie matinees.

    I think the economy will start catering more to seniors because the Boomers/Elders are a substantial sized group. What that will look like, I don't know.

    My guess is that it will be a mixed bag--and a lot will depend on how much Younger want to spend on us.

    Will we be able to command better care and amenities in the old folks home? Will we get more discounts? Will there be more modestly priced apartments? Will Medicare finally pay for in-home assisted living (which is cheaper than The Home)? Will rules on when drugs can go generic change? Will Medicare FINALLY be allowed to dicker for better prices? I hope so.

    Certainly there will be markets for caring for and catering to the elderly on not-very-high fixed incomes: cheap tech gizmos, cheaper and less invasive corrective medical equipment, cheap generic drugs, cheap home monitoring equipment, cheap beauty products--makers of this stuff should be gearing up for high volume business that will reduce costs per item. I got my Mom one of those cell phone deals, and it's great; there's even an emergency panic button built into it.

    I also think there will be a fair amount of pressure from society and from seniors themselves for more palliative care (medical marijuana and heroin) and fewer "heroics" at the end of life. I am not surprised but am somewhat concerned by the number of people in my age who support assisted suicide "for when it gets bad," based on what they've dealt with with their own parents and the reality that their children will have neither the means nor inclination to care for them.

    The Millennials are having a very hard time money-wise, and I don't see that changing unless the middle class survives. How are they going to help us seven if they want to?

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  3. Do we all have nostalgia for our own generation (or maybe our own life)? I am very glad I was not born into my parent’s generation, e.g. WWII, etc. I am glad that I grew up with the Latin Mass and that it was over by the time that I graduated from college. I have no desire for it to come back.

    I am glad that my grandparents were tenant dairy farmers when I was young. But I would not wish that life on anyone.

    I am glad that my father was a steelworker. The last decades of his working life were good; made decent money and also got a 13 week vacation every 4 years! And he retired before the steel industry began to go to pieces. And my mother never had a salaried job ever! She worked just as hard as my dad. Their lives (at least the last half) were almost as good as mine.

    Although I had about a thousand dollars of debt from my undergraduate years, I was essentially self sufficient from the day I began graduate school. No more debt, no need of parent support. Now I lived in academic poverty as a graduate student and even postdoctoral fellow, and was not able to buy a house until after I left academia and began to work in the public mental health system. I was almost forty by that time.

    The public mental health system does not pay great salaries even for its top administrators, but I was able to retire at age 60 with my house paid. And since retirement I basically live on the same amount that I did pre-retirement (except I no longer pay a mortgage), and my net worth has not changed.

    My perception is that most of the younger generations are having a much harder time than I had. I would not care to be back in high school trying to rack up extracurriculars to compete for college, and worry about how to pay for graduate school rather than having scholarships and assistantship and postdoctoral fellowships! Or be saddled with long term debt. The academic market place was very competitive, but once I got into the public mental health system, it was like tenure after 6 months and a full time research assistance for the rest of my working life! And I pretty much got to define my job for most of my years.

    I will be 75 in a week, and I expect I will be comfortable for my remaining life expectancy and beyond. I am not optimistic that political leaders will avoid plunging our country into major catastrophes. When I was young I prayed for a long life, now I say “the dozen years more” will be fine with me.

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    1. I am very happy not to be in high school or college today. I loved high school (graduated '59), loved college ('63). Paid for college from part-time and summer jobs. Catholic colleges were the bargain of all time for the students; maybe not so great for faculty or administrators (looks to be the reverse today).

      Low-expectations for women let me dally along, grad school, travel, husband, children, and then when the youngest went to kindergarten, I went to work. NYC when we first moved here was Bargain City; everyone had left for the burbs and rent control was in effect; and then co-ops came in and were a bargain.

      Loved almost all of my jobs...

      I do feel like those coming behind are facing a far harder row to hoe. And we owe them at least for the Social Security they're paying and we're receiving.

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    2. I have hope for our young people. They gave us Obama, and they tried to give us Sanders. I still hope they will find someone who lead us all out of the mess that we have.

      I had hope that our privileged generation would use our golden years to change things; I don't see that happening. That is my main regret.

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  4. Sometimes lives are atypical for their generation. My mom worked her whole life. She was married four times. When my sis and I were in high school she took us to a gyn for BC pills. When my sis and I went to college, she came with us and got a BA and then a master's in psychology. We all got master's degrees, all worked our way through college but still were poor enough to be on food stamps, and none of us was ever able to find a really good job, much less one in education. Now I'm watching the house that we all lived in for so many years crumble away for lack of funds. Hmmmm - those drugs mentioned above are sounding better all the time ;)

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  5. I'm coming partially out of the closet to say I worked for the federal government my whole career. I retired under the old CSRS system which was gold. In the eighties, they switched over to FERS for new employees, more like the 401k stuff in the private sector. Not nearly as good. So yes,it was and is better to be a boomer financially. We had the option to switch to FERS and some did. They were usually repubs who had great faith in the great Reagan and that, under repub economics and deregulation, the stock market would rise indefinitely. Of course, these guys ended up having to put in more years than I did. Most of the members of the Repub party are people who love being screwed. Except for those that have millions, of course.

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  6. Our parents did not contribute to frills like camp, college, or extra curricular activities. We did not take family vacations. So we wanted The Boy to have these experiences, though we insisted he contribute. He got a full ride to the regional community college, and we made his car and insurance payments until he moved out.

    Bad times, child care, and dealing with Raber's layoff at age 55 ate all our retirement. There was nothing from Raber's parents because of nursing home care, and I expect that will be the case with my mother. So we're down to SS and whatever we can save in the next few years. We will likely sell the house, which we paid off some years ago, and look for cheap senior apartments. Downsizing appeals to me, fortunately, and we know how to live frugally.

    And I have had a fulfilling and enjoyable work life, if not a very remunerative one. I also have "resources," like cooking, sewing and knitting skills (thank you to a good public school system and home ec classes!) and the ability to entertain myself with library books and a cheap Netflix subscription.

    I don't think we're typical of Boomers, but I am pretty sure that this is what life will look like for The Boy et Ux.

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  7. Saving Money.

    Don't have any data, only observation. We who were children of Depression-era parents, do we have a view of money different from later generations? Saving money, or at least not spending it extravagantly, was one of my childhood lessons. My parents were savers, even though they didn't have a lot. And the lesson carried over to me.

    Do our children and grandchildren have the same experience and lessons learned? What chances do the generations described above have to save, when so many seem to owe so much out of college? Later financial crisis including 2008 did not have quite the same impact as the Great Depression. Any lessons learned?

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    1. Yes my parents were savers and I am a saver. We never invested in the stock market. As working class people we regarded it as something like gambling, and probably involving a great deal of dishonestly and cheating.

      For most of my life I had three credits cards: VISA for capital like purchases (CDs, Books, good clothes, computers, etc.) MASTERCARD for things instantly consumed like food, gas, etc. and DISCOVER for in between (socks, mulch, annual flowers). Always knew exactly where all the money went. Rarely paid any interest on the cards.

      Once I bought a house I had my bi-weekly pay check divided into two parts, one the amount of the monthly mortgage and rest to live upon. So monthly I was saving the same amount that I was paying into my mortgage. As my salary went up I switched from a 30 to a 15 year mortgage. I paid off the remaining 7 years of my mortgage the day I retired.

      All our lives my parents and I had more than the people around us even though we did not make more. We had a summer cabin on a lake; my parents build it. We had modest boats, etc. We did not buy cars frequently, we rarely ate out. My mom was really the person with the money management skills.

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    2. One of the lessons from my life and my parents life is that you don't need the stock market to have a financially good life and retirement if in fact you have a reasonable salary and save.

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  8. From what I read, Americans made a real effort to reduce debt during the recession.

    Raber's parents had it very rough growing up. I'd say he is frugal to the point of eccentricity--tennis shoes with duct tape, the whole bit. A 39 cent can of cling peaches makes his day.

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  9. The other economic factor that enters in post-World War II is the growth and development of consumerism, i.e., the marketing of newly available consumer goods after the shortages created by the war.

    Lizabeth Cohen's book, "A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America," looks at all this. Fascinating read.

    Makes me think of how resistant my parents were to going out and buying new appliances. Right after the war my mother acquired a "Thor." a washing machine with a large tub, though electrically agitated had to be filled and emptied by hand. A ringer was attached. The clothes were lifted from the tub and were put through the ringer into two tubs of rinse water. When fully automatic machines came out, she resisted for a long time. Of course, as a kid I longed to help with the wash....the ringer was thrilling! What if your fingers got caught?

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    1. Here is a wikipedia take on the Thor washing machine, invented in 1907! Don't think my mom's was from that era, maybe 1935!
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_washing_machine

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    2. My Gramma had one, and it was exciting with that electric mangle! Hers was ca. 1930s. She soaked everything that might be stained, then scrubbed it out with a little washboard and Fels. No dryer, so she hung stuff outdoors or walked up two flights of stairs to the attic in winter. She had the ironing board set up in there, and would iron everything from sheets to towels to underwear to finish drying them. In summer, she ironed on the screen porch. Starch solution in a galvanized wash tub was somehow involved. Wash day was a whole big production,but she seemed to enjoy it. She kept that washing machine until she died in case the washer/dryer my folks and uncle got her ever broke down. I think she was always hoping the would.

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  10. My parents were both creators rather than consumers and poured their lives into making "Better Homes and Gardens." They both marched together to their own drummer; they did not care to keep up with other people or what other people thought of them. I was always surrounded by their beauty and creativity.

    I inherited all their freedom. I never had any pressure to succeed. Up until I was a postdoctoral fellow and they visited me at UMass Amherst they had no idea what a major university was like. As long as I was happy they were happy. Dad had an eight grade education and mom was a C student in high school.

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  11. Debt. I was doing ok when I still could work. The last job I had was at the Oregon Health Sciences University hospital working in the surgery, but had to quit because of deteriorating vision. Moved back in with my mom, had only SSD, then she died of lung cancer - left the house to my sis and me. My four pet cats all got elderly and sick and what savings I had went to their vet bills. I have credit card bills from two place which will never be paid off if I live to be a million years old.

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  12. Our kids were born in 1974 and 1978. I guess that makes them gen-x-ers? At least they got through college when it was still somewhat affordable; and had an amount of student debt that could be paid off in a reasonable length of time.
    As Boomers, we experienced some of the issues that everybody else did; layoffs or rifs, high interest in the 80's, 401k losses in the "oughts". Could have been better, could have been worse.
    I hope Margaret is right about this being the best time to be a senior, since we are entering that demographic.

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    1. I suppose to make the argument that this could be the best time to be a senior, we'd need to look backward and forward.

      Going back two generations, it's interesting to see that large families usually had some spinsters and bachelors who lived at home supporting and caring for their parents. That seems a luxury today.

      Medical care today? A blessing, until it's not. And looking forward, small families are hard pressed to provide elder care.. What else?

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    2. Elders are living longer with less quality of life, which means we are caring for parents as we enter our elder years. In Japan, women in their 70s are frequently taking care of their mothers, in their 90s. My guess is that those daughters are not going to live into their 90s because of the stress.

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  13. Crystal, any chance of aid from Habitat for Humanity. Have you ever thought off taking in a boarder? I know the last suggestion could be scary, though.

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  14. Thanks, Stanley. I have tried Habitat. I applied but because my sister is half owner of the house and she has a job, they wouldn't help. I'm not sure if they had accepted me if I could have afforded to pay them back anyway - I hadn't realized it before I applied, but they do charge people for the work they do, just at a lower cost.

    Maybe I can get the cats to find part time jobs and pitch in :)

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    1. Crystal, have you checked out LIHEAP? It's a government agency; its focus is energy assistance. Which means that they also help with things that make homes more energy efficient for low income people, such as repairing or replacing doors or windows. Also they sometimes replace old furnaces and air conditioners. Some friends of ours who had been through a lengthy spell of unemployment got them to replace a broken furnace. As I understand it, this is grant funded and doesn't have to be paid back. The states administer their own programs, and so have different requirements. Anyway, worth checking out.

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  15. Thanks, Katherine.

    Yes, I've talked to them and it's possible they could fix my heater/air conditioner which has been broken for years but I've held off on finding out more about that, in part because the actual energy bills were so expensive - using space heaters and a window air conditioner right now. Maybe in the future ...

    But I do get energy assistance in lower bill costs from both the gas and the electric company and the phone company too. In fact, I was able to get a free new refrigerator from the electric company through one of those programs :)

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    1. That's good you got a new refrigerator. For a while you could get a tax credit on "energy star" rated appliances. We got a credit on a new refrigerator, also a heat pump system. But I think that program ended.

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  16. Crystal, have you checked out what local Catholic parishes have to offer?

    Our parish has a food bank. It accepts money donations to purchase food, dry goods, and fresh produce (e.g. from my garden).

    We also have a Saint Vincent de Paul (SVDP)society. They are in many parishes around the country. They accept financial and goods donations. They interview people in their homes and make sure they are getting all their government benefits, and all other charities before they try to fill in the gaps. A very good program.

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    1. The SVDP will probably pick up food bank things since you appear to be homebound.

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    2. It appears to me that the bigger problem is that the government (especially now) is so paranoid about enabling loafers who *might* abuse the system that they don't fund disability payments anywhere near the amount that it actually costs someone to live. I would much rather see more tax money go to people who need it to live than to build more "mother of all bombs".

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    3. Thanks, you guys. All suggestions are appreciated.

      The government is kind of schizophrenic about helping people. If you have Medicaid and you increase your income, you may lose the Medicaid because it's based on your income. If I made some extra money it would have to be really a lot of money to make it worth losing Medicaid, which pays my $200 a month Medicare premiums plus the part of my bills that Medicare doesn't pay.

      And if I did get a job it would have to be a really good and permanent job because I would possibly lose the Social Security Disability check that is now my income.

      So getting help from the government is wonderful but never quite enough and fraught with worries. It tends to keep people from taking chances that might make things better.

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  17. I know people are trying to be helpful here, and that I'm gonna sound like a bitch. Also not speaking for Crystal.

    But us po' folks are pretty knowledgeable about programs and charities and what help is available. I can tell you which charities in the local area are helpful and which ones to avoid. (In my area, Habitat has a dicey reputation for providing celebrity volunteer photo ops, but for doing work that doesn't hold up well.)

    When I get on here and talk about what it's like to struggle, I'm not asking for your advice. My bank accounts dropped, not my IQ.

    What I hope is that readers here see intelligent people who have done everything they should have ... and failed because of current employment circumstances, unforeseen illnesses, and persistent notions that if you become poor, you are deficient in intelligence or moral fiber.

    I hope that you see that we live in a country that is slashing the safety nets and will vote accordingly.

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  18. Jean,

    Yes. I almost cringe when I write about bad conditions because I don't want people to think I'm obliquely asking them for help. It's just a relief to talk about it to people sometimes because there's a certain amount of shame attached to failure.

    But I think it's good too to dispel the idea that everyone with a college education will find success or that everyone who does the right things will be healthy.

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  19. I agree completely. Being poor takes its toll physically and mentally. One of the best things I ever heard on this topic was from Scott Simon a few Labor Days ago. Very short, but boy, did he get it right! http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129647232

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