Are You A GenXer or Millenial Generationer? Get Ready To Bend Over....

[shifrbv]

Even though alot of people are aware of the social security problem and the problem of high taxation, it doesn't really seem like anything is being done about it in Washington. Even with the new tax bill passed, most of the country will see little to no relief. It's almost like there is a mentality to just completely screw the younger generations. Is the US on a course for self-destruction?

Some facts for younger people to ponder on:

The elderly (age 65 and up) population will grow 153 percent between now and 2040. (Social Security Administration)

Baby boomers are saving only about one-third as much as they need. This means their kids will have to finance their retirements. (Merrill Lynch)

Today's average, married senior citizen paid $83,852 in Social Security and Medicare taxes in his/her lifetime. The average senior will get back $308,328. (Ways and Means Committee)

Today's 63-year-old will get back roughly $200 for every $100 he or she pays into Social Security. Today's 25-year-old will lose over $100 for every $450 paid into Social Security. (The Wyatt Company)

Since 1969, in inflation-adjusted dollars, the average Social Security benefit for a retired worker has risen by 80 percent. (Social Security Administration)

As a share of workers' payroll, the total cost of Social Security and Medicare could climb from 17 percent today to over 50 percent by 2040. (OASDHI, 1992)



According to "moderate projections," between 1995 and 2005 there will be almost half a million more new college graduates a year entering the job market than there will be new jobs. (Bureau of Labor Statistics) (This could be worse if we have a prolonged economic downturn)

Nearly one in three college graduates between 1990 and 2005 is expected to take a job that doesn't require a college degree - up from 1 in 10 in the 1960s. (Wall Street Journal)

Doesn't anybody in the younger generations care about this?

 

[bigd480]

i do - man that sux - glad i'm smarter than most ppl my age...

after i get off work i'm going to ask my parents to tell me their detailed retirement plan

 

[Helpless]

Sir, I don't think they can hear you...they have the "gangsta rap" playing too loud and their pants are on backwards



I hear you, though, brother.

 

[kranky]

Younger people have grown up in an environment where they look to the government to fix everything, do everything, and take care of everything. So a bigger government isn't alarming to them. And at the same time, they have little interest in the running of the government and don't show up to vote in big numbers.

Therefore, the people who do take an interest in government and show up to vote carry more clout. And the older citizens fit that description to a T. Remember that they say "Social Security is the third rail of politics - touch it and you die".

Sure those are generalizations, and they don't apply to everyone, but from my own experience they seem justified.

 

[Siva]

This is crap. I hate my apathetic do nothing and get fu*ked up the ass generation.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

Helpless: that's HATS, not pants... atleast I hope it's hats...

 

[bigd480]

<< Helpless: that's HATS, not pants... atleast I hope it's hats... >>

he may have been referring to Kriss Kross? remember them? they'll make ya jump jump.... uh huh uh huh...

 

[bigredguy]

as a member of the up and coming generation is there anything i can say to shed a decent light on us gen-Xers?

 

[shifrbv]

Siva - I hate to say it, but even if we tried to do something about it, it would be extremely difficult because of the sheer volume of older folks in this country. If anything is to be done, it has to be within the next 4-5 years. After that, it's a lost cause. Even if everyone one of the young people voted that could (according to the 2000 census) right now, it would only outnumber the older generations by 7 million (which isn't much). And as time goes on, the younger generation numbers will be getting smaller while the older ones will just keep increasing. A difference of 7 million now could rapidly shrink in less than 10 years. At that point, younger generations would not be able to compete even if every one of them voted.

According to the 2000 census:

19-24 Year Olds: 18,964,001
25-34 Year Olds: 39,891,724
35-44 Year Olds: 45,148,527

Total: 104,004,252

45-54 Year Olds: 37,677,952
55-59 Year Olds: 13,469,237
60-64 Year Olds: 10,805,447
65-74 Year Olds: 18,390,986
75-84 Year Olds: 12,361,180
85 Years &amp; Up: 4,239,587

Total: 96,944,389

According to the 2000 census, the number of people right now younger than 19 years old is only around 80 million. There is no way they're going to be able to compete with the sheer volume of older people that will be here at that time.

 

[vi edit]

Believe me, I'll be first in line to vote for a restructering of Social Security.

If I could have back that 7%(14% after employer contribution) of every paycheck, and invest it on my own, I'd be sitting pretty good come 40 years. But as much as I want to change it, I fear that nothing will ever be done about it because SS is too much of an asset for some suit wearing sleazebag in D.C. to give up.

*sigh*

And other than that, the vast majority of my generation could give a flying fart about it. Hell, I'd venture to say that 75% of people my age don't even know what the standard Social Security deduction is, and that your employer kicks in a match for it.

 

[yasha]

Aren't GenXers already like in their early 30's?

 

[shifrbv]

yasha - Yes, some are in their early 30's but Gen X also includes younger people as well.

Generation X - Curently Aged 15-35
Millenial Generation - Currently Aged 14 and younger

 

[shifrbv]

bigredguy - as a member of the up and coming generation is there anything i can say to shed a decent light on us gen-Xers?

I'm glad that you asked this question. Alot of people give the younger generations a really bad rap. It's easy to focus on the negatives. This country has been going down the tubes since the 70's and we've never regained the standard of living that was had by those in the 60's and earlier. Yet, this is discounted in trying to understand the younger generations behavior. People label us as selfish, cynical, unmotivated, and irresponsible. Yet, all the time not focusing on the difficulties which these earlier generations face than their predecessors in the 50's and 60's.

Here's some facts about GenXer's that show us in a better light:

We have more college degrees than any previous generation. (If we don't have decent paying jobs, it's not for lack of education)

We are being more responsible than our parents by marrying later and having fewer children later in life

We have more money invested in retirement than the Baby Boomer generation did at our age (+12% more invested)

We are the most racially diverse (and racially accepting) generation in history and have one of the most ambitious track records (as far as embracing technology and more people working as consultants/independents than ever before)

But we do have alot of issues to deal with. High suicide rates, high levels of anger and pain, and pessimism.

&quot;One particularly distressing outcome of this pessimism is the dramatic increase in teen suicides over the past two decades. In America over 50,000 young people committed suicide in the 1980s. In 1976, the teen suicide record was broken for the first time since 1908, which was the previous peak of Lost Generation angst. Virtually every single person in this generation will consider suicide as an option. Those that live will do so because they have chosen to do so, but this does not necessarily remove the pessimism.&quot;

 

[cjchaps]

I'm 23 and I am not counting on a Social Security check at all. I started to invest for my retirement 2 years ago, when I got my job as a consultant after graduating college. I currently have contributed to a Roth IRA, 401k, and also my own mutual/stock investments.

 

[CinderElmo]

The solution is simple. Our &quot;younger&quot; generation needs to have more and more kids (create a baby BOOM) then those kids can bankroll our retirement by filling up Social Security again.

There is going to be hell to pay once our generation gets older, comes out of their me-first-and-screw-everyone-else haze and realizes they are going to get shafted on their social security dole. I am sure we will find some way to defer the cost on to later generations...it will just take a few decades to figure out how...

We are all fools if we allow the government to short change us...

 

[bigredguy]

shifrbv

thanks for your response. it was heartening to read that.


We have more college degrees than any previous generation. (If we don't have decent paying jobs, it's not for lack of education)

this is true but if you take into account inflation we are getting paid less and less for the same job.

in the 50's and 60's a college grad could easily single handedly support his family, this is no longer true, it often takes both parents to work to raise a family. this is a new trend that will keep up into the next generations. i think that the young children of these families being thrown into day care at such a young age because of the two parent income leads to the high suicide rates because crucial morals, values and other such things are not fully instilled at a day care.

i believe that america has to make sure that the trickle down effect trickles a little more.

 

[Russ]

<< Today's 25-year-old will lose over $100 for every $450 paid into Social Security. >>



And, we shouldn't privatize Social Security, why?



<< We have more college degrees than any previous generation. >>



Which your baby boomer parents paid for.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Ferocious]

trickle down effect?

Blah another one of Reagan's dreams turning into a failure.

Heh, I remember when I didn't have to pump my own gas and I paid less for it! That disappeared under Reagan as well.

The upper class started to hate the middle class when the two became a little less indistinguishable with respect to many normal aspects of daily living. Like owning a house and a car with only one income and not pumping your own gas.

 

[Imaginer]

As I knew from the title, yep.

It is an obvious fact that there is much more emphasis over getting into college and what a pretty picture that it paints for our generation. Then with that emphasis, many get in which is a good thing but it isn't if the economy is going downhill and less jobs are available to the college student getting out.

I think that social security should be snuffed out completely. It is ONLY meant as a suppliment and not a full fledged retirement system which I think that most everyone thought back then. Even today with our educated, would they give up the money that was meant comming to them?

About the apathetic issue, yes there is a complete wave of it and I have been feeling effects of it as well. I think that our generation and the millenial generation have crap that gets in the way of a clear vision of the world such as TV, Hollywood, and music and the Internet. There is also a teenager's usual &quot;on top of the world&quot; and &quot;only myself&quot; attitude which also digs a deeper hole.

:frown:

 

[Russ]

<< Blah another one of Reagan's dreams turning into a failure. >>



Liberish Translator 2.0:

I really know nothing of that era since I was still suckling my mama's teat, but I'll repeat what I've heard from other liberals.

Russ, NCNE

 

[shifrbv]

Russ - Which your baby boomer parents paid for.

We have more college loans than ever before in history as well. I know my parents didn't pay a dime for my education. And I would suspect that alot of other people in the GenX range are or will be in the same boat. I just paid off my loans 2 years ago, thank God.



And, we shouldn't privatize Social Security, why?

Maybe we should privatize it. But yet again, the GenXers are still in a position to get screwed. Who do you propose should pay for the huge transition costs to move to such a privatized system? Right now, I haven't seen anybody pointing the finger in any other direction but the GenXers for this. Not only will they be asking us to give up a portion of the payments we've already put in, but they'll make us work till we're 75 as well.

 

[Wedesdo]

I'll move to hong kong or something if that happens - just 15% flat tax...

 

[Russ]

<< I know my parents didn't pay a dime for my education. >>



shifrbv,

Kudos to you. However, you are not the norm.

Russ, NCNE

 

[Killrose]

Well, at least GEN X'rs will benefit from the estate tax relief. Just as long as they can keep their parents working.

 

[Wedesdo]

<< However, you are not the norm. >>


Reactionary Religious Republican Right Rhetoric Translator V6.66

I just happens to know every single fact of the planet - that's why I can say if something is the norm or not and not point to any supporting evidence or proof.