This Is a Class War Disguised as a Generation War

[Donnachaidh]

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/11-1

With youth unemployment set to nudge past the million marker, it's worth reflecting on what being out of work means for the 18-to 24-year-olds who have failed to find employment since the crash of 2008. Bright young people who left school or university with high hopes have had their ambitions dashed, finding only temporary, part-time work outside their chosen field, if they have found work at all.

Many are left with a sense of growing up in a world that doesn't want them. They find themselves frantically competing for jobs and training courses as public sector work is being cut, and the private sector is failing to make up the difference. University fees are soaring as the worth of a degree in the labor market plummets. Housing is cramped and expensive. What work there is is temporary, badly paid or unpaid, and the best jobs go not to those who are best qualified or who have worked the hardest, but to those who have family connections or who can afford to slog their way through unpaid internships.

It's easy to perceive all this as an attack on the young. In fact, it is attack on the disadvantaged, on those without safety nets or resources, on those who are most easily exploited by the labor market – many of whom happen to be young, but many more of whom are women, casual workers or people on lower incomes. There is now very little room in society for those who are not already independently wealthy. This is not a generational war. It is class war.

It is small wonder that students, school pupils and young unemployed people have been taking to the streets in protest for almost a year now. A year ago the commentariat was worried about a "lost generation" sliding into apathy – now it is worried about mass civil unrest. That tells you a great deal about the state of Britain today.

[dkf]

1. The class war is a generational war.

The growing divide between the rich and poor in America is more generation gap than class conflict, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal government data. The rich are getting richer, but what's received little attention is who these rich people are. Overwhelmingly, they're older folks.

Nearly all additional wealth created in the USA since 1989 has gone to people 55 and older, according to Federal Reserve data. Wealth has doubled since 1989 in households headed by older Americans.

Not so for younger Americans. Households headed by people in their 20s, 30s and 40s have barely kept up with inflation or have fallen behind since 1989. People 35 to 50 actually have lost wealth since 1989 after adjusting for inflation, Fed data show.

The implications are far-reaching and can turn conventional wisdom on its head. Social Security and Medicare increasingly are functioning as a transfer of money from less affluent young people to much wealthier older people.

Because the older generation hasn't set aside enough money to cover promised government benefits, young people will have to make up the difference or older people will face benefit cuts. The financial shortfalls of Social Security and Medicare over the next 75 years are so large — $340,000 per household — that they dwarf the wealth of every age group. This hidden debt will make it a challenge for young people to accumulate as much wealth late in life as their parents have.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2007-05-20-cover-generation-wealth_N.htm