Yeah, Obama always struck me as more of an early X-er/“Generation Jones-er” on a lot of issues. Still, he grew up in the post-war economic anomaly and bought into its assumptions, albeit to a lesser degree and with more cynicism and less entitlement than older Boomers. As a relatively early X-er, my outlook is similar to his, although by the time I was a teenager already I knew people my age were going to be screwed over somehow.
Once of the good dividing lines in terms of sharing the Boomer attitude or not is how an American thinks about Social Security. From an early age, I and just about any X-er I’ve discussed it with agreed that (while there is no crisis) that the redemption age was going to start to be rolled back the moment that the Boomer generation lost its electoral clout due to natural attrition. Those with the Boomer mentality generally assume that they’ll start collecting SSI exactly when they were promised it.
Wow, that got me thinking. It’s one of the ways you could say I’m not a Boomer, because that was something I instinctively knew at a young age. But probably because I’ve always been good with math and finance, and understood the physical implications of a higher percentage of workers doing non-manual-labor jobs.
That’s still the sticking point for me: someone who works construction for decades should qualify to start Social Security long before an executive who can take naps after lunch in their private office (ask me how I know this is a thing).
I must have been about 16 when I figured that they’d keep raising the full benefit age so as to keep it constantly a couple years out of reach for anyone born after 1965. X-ers as a cohort will never have the demographic clout in elections to change that.
Add into that the decline of defined-benefits pension plans in favour of 401ks, and the fact that you increasingly have to be very lucky to have either in our “you’re on your own” society, and you’re going to see a lot more people in their 50s and younger today pinning all their hopes on SSI (which was always intended to be a last-ditch supplement rather than a full state pension plan).
Some older Boomers gave us a preview of that, in the wake of the 2007-2008 crash that wiped out their retirement funds and home equity. There are a lot of people now in their late 60s and early 70s collecting SSI who are still working, and not by choice.
The difference in physical health and apparent age and ability to keep working between your average 60-year-old construction worker and your average 60-year-old white-collar manager can be stark and sobering. And while I’m not averse to workplace nap-time in principle, I’ve known more than a few older CEOs and college profs who see it as their God-given right.
In smaller companies, everybody has a private office, but they have to work like dogs to ensure they still have a job in a month.
In larger companies, the privacy of the office is inversely proportional to the amount of work done and directly proportional to the amount of bullshit slung and asses kissed. That’s intentional, because cube farms are easy to look over and see who looks like they’re working and who doesn’t. Management cubes are a bit more private, because they get evaluated on their results (which they get by turning around and asking the cube farmers to do their work for them). The people who get their own private offices basically excel at playing the game, which means they’re so good at it that they don’t need to do any of the work themselves.
This is one of the reasons I rail against the “named” generations. There are both regional and cultural variations in experience that massively shift the common touchpoints that get attributed to certain generations.
For example, I have relatives who grew up in a country and era where they struggled to even find enough to eat. When the family of 6 had one egg to share, that was a feast. They would fall into the Boomer demographic, but they behave much more like my grandmother, who grew up during the Great Depression. They never throw out anything that might be useful: tin cans, half sheets of blank paper, a battery that might still have a couple hours of useful life in a different device; they can’t throw it out because they know in their gut they could go back to scraping by at any time.
Another example: I’m a digital native. I was writing code in grade school. But there are people who never had to use a computer through high school and college who are ten years younger than me. The important life experience that affects behaviors is the actual shared experience, not the age.
That’s about the time I figured that younger people were truly screwed, and that we’d be lucky to survive to an age where we’d finally be allowed to collect. As it is, when I’m 67 it’ll suddenly be moved up to 69, when I’m 69 it’ll be moved to age 71 or 72, and onward until maybe I’ll finally to collect SSI in my late 70s or early 80s.
If you take that view, you’re more likely to be under age 55.
Agreed. I’ve come to the conclusion that if we don’t get progressives in the White House and Senate in the next few years, the TPTB will just eliminate SSI (along with all other welfare programmes) in favour of a neoliberal UBI.
I don’t (except for anyone who started voting GOP starting in 1980). I’m pointing out that it’s a differentiating attitude. If you think you’re going to start collecting SSI before you’re age 75, you’re probably over age 55 now; if you think you’ll never collect full benefits until after age 75 (if ever), you’re probably under age 55.
As I said, I’ll allow for progressives gaining enough power to reverse the toxic economic trends of the last 40 years, and am doing my part to support them. If, in 2028, I get to see President Warren introducing Senate Dem Majority Leader Ocasio-Cortez as the nominee, I’ll be very happy and display a lot less Gen-X cynicism in my old age.
At the same time, I’m literally betting money (in the form of opportunity costs) on the darker scenario. My long-term financial planning assumes that, one way or another, SSI won’t be an income source until I’m very old, if at all. I don’t think I’m alone amongst Gen-Xers in taking that view.
But that is one of the defining traits of Boomers: having been raised by parents who lived through the Depression, we know that being relatively well off at any given moment is no guarantee. I used to have to make a “Depression meal” once a week, so that we would never forget how to make due if/when we might be close to starvation in future. Water, a few root vegetables, and some cabbage…actually, an easy dinner to make, but also a good reminder that a small backyard garden can keep you going when you can’t afford to go to the store.
I have seen it go the other way. I know a couple of Boomers with parents who lived through the Depression and WWII and continued to be extremely frugal even in the prosperous decades after the war. Their Boomer kids resented it a lot, and vowed never to live like that when they became adults. Both ended up getting into a lot a financial trouble in the '80s and '90s, when they over-extended themselves on consumer debt in a consumerist orgy of keeping up with the Joneses. It cost one of them her marriage, too.
Your “Depression meal” seems like a healthier reaction, in terms of both money psychology and having one light veggie dinner a week.
Keep an eye on this. It is a trial run for 2020. Also, WTF is this “if the election is contested, the legislature may make the decision”? That would be the end of a democratic government.
With the insufferable amount of Christmas schlock every year (starting earlier and earlier to boot), I often question both the notion of a “Jewish-controlled media” and “war on Christmas”.
