USA Today had an article on how boomers are dropping out of the job market.

[leftyladyfrommo]

Article made it sound like Boomers were just dropping out because they want to.

Another friend of mine just got terminated on Thursday. Everyone I know has been terminated.

It's the same story thousands of times over. She worked where she did for 14 years. Got great reviews. Loved her job.

Then the corporation brought in some guy in his 20's and put him in charge (of getting rid of everyone over bout 40). He just kept increasing her work load until she just couldn't keep up any more. She started getting bad reviews that were basically BS. And then she was terminated because she wasn't good enough on the computer.

So now she is really relived to be out that awful pressure cooker. And she will have to spend most of her savings to keep alive until she gets SS.Having everyone over 50 out of work and spending all their savings to live is going to have a long term devasting impact on our economy.

And I haven't been able to find one person in government who even realizes this might end up being a huge problem.

[lostincalifornia]

1. What is meant by "baby boomer"? If it is the 1940 and 1950 year group then maybe some are retiring,

and dropping out. I don't know if the article broke it down by age

I suspect most people in their fifties or before are NOT dropping out of the job market, the main reason because they cannot afford to

[PasadenaTrudy]

8. 1946-1964 is considered the Boom n/t

[robinlynne]

21. As one, I think the OP means the job market dropped us out. not by choice.

In my career of 30+ years, I was replaced by younger people. I now work at a minimum wage job which pays only my rent. That menas I am using my retirement to live, and that wont last much longer.

[lostincalifornia]

26. No question about it the job market dropped out on a lot of people. That is why social security is

so important to preserve, and not play games with COLA.

[daleanime]

31. Not just preserve....

it must be expended. The age limit needs to be lowered and the rate increased. Only a very small percentage of the working class was able to save any thing for retirement. Time to pay them back for 40+ years of wage stagnation.

[Bennyboy]

2. It's been a HUGE problem for ten years or more...

For me, after I turned 50 there were no jobs. NONE> no interviews, no nothhing. I know so many people in tthis situation now. so many.

[Le Taz Hot]

3. This scenario times, literally, a couple million.

It happened to me and my husband and several other friends around my age. We were supposed to have the most disposable income we ever had by now. Not having that, living on skeletal incomes is now and will increasingly have an impact on the economy. We were both able to find jobs after 3-1/2 years (him) and 2-1/2 years (me) but his is with a start-up and is precarious at best. Mine is extremely part-time. Together we make 1/4 of what we used to make.

[leftyladyfrommo]

4. It's pretty impossible to sue for age discrimination now.

Some Supremem Court ruling put an end to that. Said it was impossible to prove age discrimination. So now corportions are simply purging everyone over a certain age.

So, I guess the truth to be learned from this is that you probably won't be able to actually find a job until you are in your 20's sometime and will be forced back out of the job market at 50 (and earlier in a lot of fields)s so you better save every dime you make because it's all you will have to live on for about 15 years.

[PasadenaTrudy]

10. and hope

you have parents with money a/o real estate to leave to you...

[leftyladyfrommo]

15. My friend does have some money coming from her mother's estate.

That will help a bunch.

But then the money will be gone and future generations are just going to be on their own.

[PasadenaTrudy]

22. I'm glad I don't have kids

and won't have that to worry about. My brother and have inherited rental property that we will hold onto as long as possible. He's 57 and I'm almost 50...he didn't have kids either.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. Elizabeth Warren's trying to address these issues. nt

[leftyladyfrommo]

12. She is?

I'll try to find out what she is saying. I have e-mailed McCaskill and just get nothing. Maybe I am trying to contact the wrong person.

[Buns_of_Fire]

6. Her story is very similar to mine. Tell her to hang in there -- I know what she's going through. nt

[KurtNYC]

7. Gotta love those upbeat articles

I went looking for the data behind a study cited in a GD thread and the headline was all about how women and minorities are "more optimistic" about the value of a college degree. What the data actually showed was that the more potentially discriminated against you are in the workplace, the more important it is to have degrees and credentials.

We have lost the big vision in the USA -- politicians used to talk about the future and doing great things (JFK/LBJ) but now they only seem to talk about preventing terrible things. Our expectations are being managed -- they tell us to expect the worst.

[TreasonousBastard]

13. Eisenhower...

I remember the shock we were all in when Sputnik went up.

Eisenhower didn't seem terribly inspirational at the time, but he pushed a program that got my high school, along with thousands of others, three brand new science labs, funding for science teachers, and a bunch of other things. And mine was a conservative, very religious, Lutheran high school. Imagine what some others got.

Then Kennedy came along and talked of a future of lunar colonies, boundless energy, and marvelous invention. The New Frontier was the US leading the world in peace as it had in war. Johnson, even Nixon, pushed it along.

But then came Reagan, and it all came crashing down. Excellence had no benefit, only cheapness was worth going for and mediocrity was acceptable.

And here we are today.

[PasadenaTrudy]

9. The only people I know

that are over 50 or 60 and doing well are psychotherapists in private practice. Age and life experience are actually a good thing in their business. I also have a friend in her mid-50s who is a counselor for students with disabilities at a junior college. She's been there 30 yrs and feels secure...but, you never know these days.

[stopbush]

34. My sister is a psychologist at a well-known clinic in the midwest.

She's 57. They're pushing all of the older types to take early retirement.

[PasadenaTrudy]

38. That sucks

I know a few that have private practices so they are their own bosses. They plan to work until they drop because they love what they do.

[L0oniX]

11. Forcing people who saved to spend their savings IS the plan.

Remember when saving money was a good thing?

[dickthegrouch]

28. ^^^ This ^^^

Those of us in this age bracket should band together and get penalties on premature use of 401K's rescinded if we are over 50 and laid off. I haven't yet had to tap that money, but I can see the writing on the wall and I will resent like hell any penalty I end up paying since that just accelerates my financial demise.

[L0oniX]

32. I already have the best homeless food lines picked out.

[n2doc]

30. Exactly - Saw this toon this morning:

[Coyotl]

14. USA Today is not news, it is propaganda.

Why even mention them?

[leftyladyfrommo]

16. Because it's out there this morning.

And lots of people read that paper. I do every morning along with the KC Star and the WSJ. It's important to know what the other guys are spewing out.

[Coyotl]

19. What "the other guys" are spewing out is only as important as the audience share the spewing has.

Spreading doom and gloom on Monday morning should be left to the experts

[leftyladyfrommo]

20. This is the Bible belt.

It's important to know what the right wing rumor mill is spewing out on a daily basis.

People here not only read and believe it all, they spread it from one to another at lightening speed. I hear the most amazing things at breakfast most days.

[seveneyes]

23. Doom and Gloom is a reality in this economy for many people

Keeping and acquiring a living wage has become more stressful and critical than what you might see in the news. it should be reported, discussed and resolved if possible. Getting jobs back in America is the biggest job at hand right now. Nothing to rofl about the reality.

[Fumesucker]

17. I was talking about employment with a friend of mine in his mid 40s yesterday

We've had several conversations about it before but I really hit a nerve with him yesterday, he's still employed and has a pretty good job for this area.

I mentioned that most of the time when you interview with a larger company the person doing the hiring doesn't actually know anything about the job you are being interviewed for. My friend is a refrigeration mechanic and that rang a bell with him, evidently during the interview six years ago for his current job he had about five people sitting around reading him questions out of a textbook on refrigeration. The question, or answer rather that actually got him hired was "what is a BTU?", he rattled off the answer "the energy to raise one pound of water one degree F", he was the only person out of about twenty who interviewed for the job who knew the answer and the interviewees were all trained and certified refrigeration mechanics.

It made a real impression on him that I understood what was going on the hiring game to the point I anticipated what happened in his own job search. He paid much more attention to what I was telling him about his own future job prospects after that little revelation.

[leftyladyfrommo]

18. Most of the people about 45 or older can't even get an interview.

Everything goes thru the internet and people just never get any response at all to their applications.

If you don't know someone you just don't stand any chance at all.

[Fumesucker]

24. Yeah, that was one of the things I told him

I could tell when we parted he was thinking hard about what I'd said.

He had a quadruple bypass early last year, if he loses his current job he's going to have a really hard time.

[meow2u3]

25. Boomers aren't really dropping out of the workforce

They're being RUN out of the workforce because of rampant age discrimination enabled by the Supreme Court.

[leftyladyfrommo]

27. Yes. That's it in a nutshell.

I keep hoping that maybe someone will actually notice - or even care, if that's not asking too much.

We had a letter to the editor in the KC Star a couple of weeks ago by a millinial that was complaining about not being able to get a job after she got her degree in Education. She was pretty much blaming her situation on the older people who I guess are hogging all the jobs. I wanted to write in and tell her that the Boomers have it a whole lot worse than she does. And it's not our fault. When the whole economy is run by corporations you have to play by their rules. And even then you can get forced out for absolutely no good reason except that they don't want anyone around that's over 40.

Our job situation is a real mess. And with computers sucking up more and more jobs it probably will only get worse.

A young friend of mine was telling me that there is now a machine that can make burgers up to something like 350 an hour. And lots of fast food places are using apps so that people can order and pay and not need to talk to a human.

Great news.

[littlewolf]

29. here is a article on the machine.

http://www.gizmag.com/hamburger-machine/25159/

This self-contained, automatic device sees raw ingredients go in one end and the completed custom-made burgers come out the other at the rate of up to 400 per hour. The machine stamps out the patties, uses what the company says are "gourmet cooking techniques never before used in a fast food restaurant,” applies the toppings (which are cut only after ordering to ensure freshness), and even bags the burgers.

snip

According to Momentum Machines, making burgers costs US$9 billion a year in wages in the United States alone. The company points out that a machine that could make burgers with minimum human intervention would not only provide huge savings in labor costs, but would also reduce preparation space with a burger kitchen replaced by a much smaller and cheaper stainless-steel box.

oh joy ..... and people wonder why no one has work experience.

[tblue37]

33. And all those wages not being paid will not be spent to buy goods and services in the

economy, because machines do not spend money to live.

With no one earning money, no one spending money, the economy, which is 70% based on consumer spending, contracts even more, so more people end up out of work, with no money to spend, and the cycle keeps repeating itself, so that eventually the citizens of a former "developed" country will mostly end up living, like the poor too often must in third-world countries, near landfills so they can access junk to recycle into basic necessities for survival.

[B Calm]

35. A lot of us are retiring too.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

36. The answer from Republicans is these people are losers looking for a handout....

The answer from Democrats amounts to a pandering to the Teachers Union claiming these people need to get trained for today's jobs.

Neither answer will solve the problem.

The REAL solution is the one both sides run away from.

Lower the retirement age to 55. This opens the job market to younger workers.

Now the OTHER thing the Democrats have talked about is infrastructure spending but they are afraid Republicans will come back with the old "tax and spend" charge so they are appealing to Republican GREED to get a tiny bit of that passed. (Mainly, it's the no-bid contract scam all over again)

[Yo_Mama]

37. There is a certain amount of disconnect

You see it in legislative discussions and even in the top-level economic discussions.

Somehow we need to break down the cognitive walls that separate us.