JUDGMENT CALLS
Robert J. Samuelson
The End of Entitlement
Economic life has simultaneously become more prosperous and more precarious. People feel vulnerable even when they have good jobs.
We middle-class Americans are in a funk. "The overarching economic narrative of the 2008 campaign is the idea that life for the middle class has gotten more difficult," writes Paul Taylor of the Pew Research Center, which has just published a massive report on middle-class anxieties. By its survey, more than half of Americans believe they either have not moved ahead in the past five years (25 percent) or have fallen behind (31 percent).
Pew pronounces this "the most downbeat short-term assessment of personal progress in nearly half a century."
It's not that Americans have lost their optimism. About two thirds say they have higher living standards than their parents did at the same age, and by a 2–1 margin they expect their children to live better than they do. But there's an underlying disenchantment that seems to predate today's higher oil prices, falling home values and declining employment.
"When my college-educated, gainfully employed thirty-something friends and I get together, we talk about money," writes Nan Mooney in her new book, "(Not) Keeping Up With Our Parents." "We talk about our inadequate health insurance and whether we can afford it, about how to juggle credit card payments and crushing student loans, how to both work and pay for child care or whether we feel we can afford to have children at all. I'll be honest: this wasn't the life I'd expected."
Part of the deceptive sense of falling behind reflects the elastic nature of being middle class. According to Pew, 70 percent of households now have two or more cars, and a similar share has satellite or cable TV; 66 percent have high-speed Internet; 42 percent already have flat-screen TVs. Thirty years ago, no one's parents had this inventory. More students go to college and graduate school, so more have debt. Health care is expensive in part because modern medicine can do so much. Someone has to pay. One in 10 households now has a vacation home, says Pew.
"Progress" keeps draining our pocketbooks. Pew finds that four fifths of Americans find it hard to maintain middle-class lifestyles; in 1986, two thirds did. But today's middle-class anxieties transcend the well-advertised "squeeze" on incomes. The deeper source of disquiet, I think, lies elsewhere. Middle-class families value predictability, order and security, and these reassuring qualities have eroded. People worry about rising living expenses; but what really upsets them is the possibility that their incomes or fringe benefits—pensions, health and disability insurance—might vanish altogether.
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Member Comments
Posted By: swilds @ 05/29/2008 11:04:38 AM
Comment: Yes, we middle class are feeling less secure despite our improved standard of living. But why? I think it's because we have too many choices, and too much advertising. We're keenly aware that there is a whole industry out there bent on smoothly swindling us out of our dollars. No one seems to be really interested in providing services anymore; the goal is just to get people to spend money, even if the goods or services offered are shoddy or unnecessary.
There used to be one phone company and a handful of phone models; now there's dozens of each, including phones that do far more than we need them to. We're bombarded everyday with ads for credit cards, loans, and insurance, none of which we're sure we need, for which we do not have the expertise or information we need to make wise decisions. Bad decisions have major consequences; witness the subprime loan debacle and the travesty of home insurance in New Orleans. We stand in the aisles at the grocery story, reading cereal boxes, trying to figure out what the brightly colored label 'whole grain' really means. We see ads from oil, energy, and car companies telling us how 'green' they are, and we wonder how 'green' they REALLY are. We're forced to make decisions based on slick advertising, from companies focused on short term gains, not long term service.
People feel like no one cares about them anymore, that the corporations are out to make a buck off of them; that we're just a bunch of commodities to be taken advantage of. We may not be fighting off indians, communists, or diptheria anymore, but the world is still full of real dangers, though they are more corporate than terrorist. THAT'S the real problem. THAT'S what is making people feel insecure.
Posted By: mark3132 @ 05/20/2008 7:40:50 PM
Comment: I can't believe there is a typographical error in this article. Is the online edition not worthy of the same level of scrutiny as the printed version? "Fear of these setbacks has also up climbed the social ladder" Editors need to pay attention.
Posted By: timrogers @ 05/18/2008 11:58:35 PM
Comment: The psyche of the middle class consists of big chunks of insecurity and anxiety. Are these mental states at higher levels than in the past? Globalization and illegal immigration, downsizing and outsourcing, increased productivity and the pace of technology have all made the middle class just a little suspicious that something is wrong, and nervous about whether it is headed their way. All have watched a powerful trend that turned a full time job into part time work, or contract work, or consulting work ,or self employment, or temporary work, or day labor, or no work at all. All have watched costs for food, energy, health care,insurance,and debt creep up. As the middle class slides toward lower class it is little consolation to see the lower class slide toward poverty. The middle class is uncertain about the present and afraid to think about the future. Economists talk about the consumer confidence index, and say it is always headed either up or down. Middle class people call it 'things getting worse instead of better". Most of them will stay middle class only by sinking with rest to a lower level full of poorer people like them. There will always be a middle class, but they won't always need any money to qualify. Insecurity and anxiety will suffice.