The Young Are Losing
Robert Samuelson's column in today's Washington Post discusses the social and economic reasons for Generation Squeezed, which would be America's young people. Below are just the first and last three paragraphs, but Samuelson's entire column is a 'must read.'
"I worry about the future — not mine but that of my three children, all in their 20s. It is an axiom of American folklore that every generation should live better than its predecessors. But this is not a constitutional right or even an entitlement, and I am skeptical that today’s young will do so. Nor am I alone. A recent USA Today/Gallup poll finds that nearly 60 percent of Americans are also doubters. I meet many parents who fear the future that awaits their children.
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"As a parent, all this rattles me. We judge our success by how well our children do. We love them and want them to succeed, even if most of us recognize — at some point — that our ability to influence and protect them has expired. Peering into the unfathomable future, we don’t like what we think we see. We’re dispatching them into a less secure and less prosperous world. These parental anxieties, I think, are the presidential campaign’s great, unacknowledged issue. Many voters will decide based on a calculus of which candidate would minimize the economic perils for their grown children.
"But the calculus will be selective. To aid the young, we could tighten Social Security and Medicare, raising eligibility ages and reducing payouts for wealthier retirees. Unlikely. Younger voters seem clueless about advancing their economic interests. In 2008, 18-to-29-year-olds supported Barack Obama by 34 percentage points. They love his pseudo-youthfulness. Or his positions on other issues (immigration, gay rights) trump economics. As president, Obama has done nothing to improve generational fairness.
"If the young won’t help themselves, their parents and grandparents might. They might champion revising retirement programs. Dream on. Parents and grandparents may be worried about their offspring’s prospects, but they’re not so worried as to sacrifice their own. There are real conflicts between the young and old; so far, the young are losing." (emphasis added)
Kudos, Mr. Samuelson, for a most informative column.