As I read this preview of a documentary film on the financial state of the boomers since The Great Recession, I thought of all the contributors to our recent FamilyScholars Symposium on State of our Unions. Each pointed out that supporting marriage is not the only way to support the middle class and these numbers remind us that we need all hands on deck, especially as this generation moves into old age in the next two decades.
“One of the lasting effects of the Great Recession has been the economic spiral downward of the American middle class, and no group has been harder hit than the boomer generation, men and women in the prime of their working lives.
From 2007 to 2009, workers 55 to 64 year old who lost jobs had been making an average of $850 a week; those lucky enough to be re-employed by January 2010 were earning $647 a week, a 23.9 percent drop in income.
Younger boomers, ages 45 to 54, had been averaging $916 a week; the jobs they were able to find after the recession paid $755, a 17.6 percent decline.
That is the story Susan Sipprelle tells in her new documentary, “Set for Life,” about the generation that was so sure that they were — until their lives came undone during the Great Recession…” Read more
Categories: Aging, Disability, Death, Dying, General
Thanks. I’ve been thinking about this lately. We have the biggest generation ever moving into the age where you have catastrophic health costs, and we have more people who can’t take care of themselves and have lost everything.
We really need to be talking about how to meet the coming huge costs of old age.
Do we want to help older workers get jobs? Do we want to do something about mortgages? Do we want universal health insurance? lower the age of first being allowed to get Medicare to cover these people? Can we change Medicaid so that you don’t have to use up your assets to get it? Can we start to cover long-term care?
And, yes, this is another reason to strengthen marriage. Not by pointing fingers at divorced people, but by working to make marriages better so that families can stay together and build the wealth they need going into old age.
@ Diane M,
I know you mean well, Diane, but who will pay for all these items you’ve listed? With Congress chomping at the bit to implode Social Security, and privatize away Medicare; the last vestiges of the social contract that spoke volumes about our dedication to care for our valued oldsters is fast disappearing.
If I may, I would suggest two very insightful books that tell the story of ‘what is’ and the grim truth that none of this is going to change barring some catastrophic event. We are a balkanized country with all the attendant problems ensuing from that. So, we squabble and pick over the bones left of a once thriving country … and, fret and worry that same sex marriage will destroy us. Same sex marriage is the last bell tolling for a moribund society.
The books:
Betrayal of the American Dream by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele (2012)
The Revolt of the Elites : and the Betrayal of Democracy by Christopher Lasch (1995)
Teresa wrote, “Same sex marriage is the last bell tolling for a moribund society.”
I know she means well, but such statements are the dying gasps of people who support injustice and inequality. Having no rational arguments to buttress their positions, anti-gay forces must resort to blaming the entire society for their failures to change an evolving cultural consensus.
“I know you mean well, Diane, but who will pay for all these items you’ve listed? With Congress chomping at the bit to implode Social Security, and privatize away Medicare; the last vestiges of the social contract that spoke volumes about our dedication to care for our valued oldsters is fast disappearing.”
Well, I think the coming crisis means we have to stop talking about getting rid of Social Security or Medicare and start talking about how we can put aside some money for it and make it more affordable.