The Post-Social Contract Generation

[marmar]

from HuffPost:




Dr. Judith Rodin
The Post-Social Contract Generation
Posted July 17, 2008 | 03:00 PM (EST)




This week, the Rockefeller Foundation and TIME released a comprehensive survey, which asked several thousand Americans about their sense of economic security. One finding took us especially by surprise: almost half of America's youngest workers believe the nation's best days may have come and gone.

This is Generation Y: roughly 90 million Americans born between 1979 and 1990. They are the nation's largest age group, and increasingly its most pessimistic. They are America's future, but fear the all-too-real possibility they might fare worse than their parents.

The survey emerged from two years of work shaping policies and products that can help Americans weather the crosswinds of global economic transformation, but we learned, in the process, about the plight of America's broken social contract.

Between the bookends of the Roosevelt and Reagan administrations, Americans, their employers, and government entered into an implied agreement that afforded citizens a basic level of economic security if they worked hard and took responsibility for their families. Today, that 20th century social contract is in tatters, and eight in 10 of us yearn for a new bargain to help meet 21st century challenges.

Young people are leading the trend. Ninety percent say the social contract is broken and 87 percent -- the largest portion in any age group -- are calling out for a new one.

One reason is that they acutely feel the current economic crunch. We saw it repeatedly in the survey: six in 10 had to borrow money from a friend to meet basic expenses; four in 10 skipped a doctor's appointment because of the costs. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/judith-rodin/the-post-social-contract_b_113368.html

[Igel]

1. The social contract's in tatters.

But it's not just because of one side's actions.

I remember my childhood in the '60s, working class with pretensions to being middle class. My parents scrimped to buy their house, new cars, and the few luxuries they could afford.

Then I watched those in my generation. They assumed that the starting point for their lifestyle at 23 was the same as their parents at 45. And the racked up the debt to prove it.

Now I live in an apt. building with a fair number of college students and recent graduates. They have the same attitude: Buy it now, because they expect to have it when they reach the height of their earning power. Then they get deep into debt, and it's not fair.

They look at jobs, and don't want to stay there for 5 years if it means working up. They're important. They want to start at least half-way up the ladder. If it means being independent--meaning not having a necessarily stable source of income--that's fine, but it's not fair that their income isn't secure. It should be. The social contract they say they want and the social contract they strongly imply they expect are two different things.

Then I consider the people that I worked with, most of whom maybe could have made more money elsewhere, but decided to barter risk for security. They settled. They also, by and large, lived more meagre lives than some recent grads. On the other hand, they also had mortgages they could afford, cars that were paid off, and decided that grilled burgers in their backyards were better than sushi a few times a week at a trendy sushi bar. Most of them have had a couple of different jobs, but they've usually stayed in their fields, often with the same coworkers.