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The Un-Retiring, Increasingly Disabled Non-Working American Dream
For the past few years (here from 2012 to most recently here) we have vociferously argued that the state of the US labor force is anything but healthy (and anything but cyclical) as the structural aging of America (where work is punished, college is free, and retirement long forgotten) drags at The American Dream. Even Goldman Sachs' Jan Hatzius - now desperate for a less positive spin to employment, in hopes of keeping The Fed dovish-er longer-er, has admitted that because of discouragement, disability, and schooling, coupled with a slowdown in the rise of the retired population will slow the pace of decline of the unemployment rate.
Where do we stand now? Exhibit 1 shows the cumulative increase in the population shares reporting themselves inactive because of discouragement, disability, schooling, and retirement.
Note the considerable increase in the "Disabled" band and "In School, Don't Want A Job" since the financial crisis.
Of course, the structual retirement of Boomers is one major source of the rise in non-participation. However, as Goldman notes, when the retirement rate is adjusted for the actual population weights as they have evolved (i.e. larger and larger numbers of Americans are in the older cohorts and so higher numbers of retirees is expected but must be adjusted for the actual number of potential retirees - not simply the aggregate population), we find something that Zero Hedge has been screaming about for a number of years...
The age-adjusted Retirement Rate is tumbling...
Simply put - more and more aging Americans are forced back to work since their savings are inadequate or as Goldman eloquently puts it - "economically motivated early retirement is again on the decline."
* * *
So to sum up - The American Dream is now... work your whole life (and we mean your whole life)... the number of workers 55 and over just hit 32.9 million, up 1.3 million from a year ago, and an all time high.
or...
Live on government transfers via Disability, Student Loans, or any of the myriad "fair" handouts being offered today.
America - where work is punished.
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THE SHADOW OF CRISIS HAS PASSED! Anyone who disagrees goes to reeducation camp!
shadow of crisis has passed, crisis come.
‘At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.’s Framework Convention on Climate Change,.........‘”This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution,” she said.’
welfare for all, I suppose. Control the income and the dinner table, and inject the babies without having to answer serious questions.
She probably wouldn't be able to pass a common core math class...idiot.
If you are walking towards somebody with the sun at your back, your shadow gets to that person before you do. What does that mean for the shadow of a crisis having passed?
Could you maybe afford some color for your graph? Many of us have color CRTs for our computers, and I even saw a color screen on a phone today.
Color? Y'all must be rich 'n sitch.
working on (becoming) disabled... doing the same low paying manual labor! Living in the Shadows.. where the crisis HAS NOT PASSED! LOL..
shhhhh... can you hear that noise? that silent buzzing? it s the new drahma notes being printed in Athens...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-5_Nw0tFXE
Not quite loud enough to drown out the clump-clump-clump of the Free Shit Army on the march.
I'm 28 and tired of paying for other people's lifestyles. I'm ready to go on disability for awhile so that others can pay me. Oh, and I want a townhouse provided to me...and in a nice neighborhood too with good schools. It's not my fault all my baby-daddies left us. Oh, and food too. We want free food. And cable with all the good channels. And a cell phone (to, uh, "look" for work and stuff).
Fuck it. Go ahead and do it if you can. It will crash the system that much sooner.
Exactly what I was thinking. I'm competant enough I could probably just work part-time on the side and do what I can to not pay taxes into the system* either.
*thus starving the jew-beast
who is john gault?
37, you are a Patriot; Godspeed, good sir!
Always amuses me the mules who know the game, yet out they go to pull the wagon of their masters as hard as they can, as its bloody wheels grind the life from both thier parents and children...
what color is your skin? And you forgot the cash request.
#FOARWARD Soviet!
On average, each American has saved a total of only about $58,000 for their retirements. For affluent investors, or those with at least $250,000 in investible assets, the average retirement savings is $342,592, which means they are better prepared to face retirement than the rest of U.S. workers. For those with less than $250,000 in investible assets, the average retirement account amounts to only $29,358.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/an-all-american-recipe-for-a-retirement-disa...
wow. $350K will last about 5 years if you don't get sick. If you do, it's gone in a year.
They have defined benefit mindsets, but defined contribution realities (if they are lucky). The curse of the 401k
as long as you aren't retiring with a mortgage, 350k outta last you a lot longer than that unless you are stupid
these are just nominal values, savings will get blown away much the moment SHTF.
and SHTF is coming soon to UE.
if Greece gets troika to support them - there are other countries who will want less austerity in the same way as Greece which will break UE financial system, if Greece loses troika support, Grexit will crack UE banking system, and show others the way to independence.
go GREECE!!!!
Is that Deflationary?
If by retirement account you are talking about a 401K then I would say you are insane. I HOPE my 401k is still worth something. There is a major correction if not a crash coming for the stock market and I mean MAJOR. On the lighter side of things, you should be counting on a lot more than your retirement account for retirement income. HOWEVER...you should be able to live on $29,358 a year. IF not, you planned very very very very very very (x100) poorly. A lot of retirement is a reasonable expectation of your retirement. For most of us, no, we will not be jet setting around the world. But it would be nice to have enough money to go visit the grand kids or take a vacation twice a year.
je suis retired
I apologize for the poor formatting...Source: http://www.statisticbrain.com/american-family-financial-statistics/
Average American family savings account balance$3,800
Percent of working Americans who are not saving for retirement40 %
Percent of American families who have no savings at all 25 % Average amount saved for retirement$35,000
Average American household debt$117,951
Average American family home value$160,000
Average amount owed on home mortgage$95,000
Average American household annual income$43,000
Average credit card debt$2,200
Percent of American workers who postponed their retirement age this year24 %
Percent surveyed who are very confident about having enough money for retirement18 %
Percent of American adults who do not have a bank account7.7 %
Percent of American adults who have an emergency fund to fall back on 38 %The other scary one is how many Americans couldn't scrape together $2,500 for a one-time emergency, never mind retirement.
this data may be correct, but if so, it's warm happy fuzzy... a quick rural report
1. avg. this: f*cking 0
2. avg. that: f*king 0
3. avg. the other: f*cking 0
4. percent of the other who might have been part of the previous : who f*cking cares
there are things like good will, gardens, deer and fish, so maybe we got more than we think.. a few computers too, sh*tloads of guns
i know many who are living on less than $15k/yr. with no welfare, no safety net of any kind, either property is paid for or in many cases, inherited property. Some of the young adults are renting, they have to apply for subsidies and with babies they qualify. No babies, no sugar. I assume the babies must take "the shots".
I pay over $10,000/year in property taxes so that my leftist county can harass me. It doesn't matter whether my place is paid off or not. I still have to pay $833/month "rent" to the government or the progressive government will take my home and sell it.
When you can't pay no more they ain't gonna take your home and sell it. They gonna take your home and give it to their buddys
Where you do live Taxatusetts?
well having read ZH for 5 yrs, I have come to this conclusion: our finance system is corrupt, the moneyed elite are crooks and depraved. governments are filled with corruption and oppression..so to play this game honestly is foolish at best.
Damn... American dream used to mean so much to me, now it seems like the whole thing is rigged from the beginning
In all we’re sitting on a demographic timebomb that will cripple our future economic even worse than it’s now.
The young kids don’t learn the new jobs because they don’t want the work themselves up the ladder.
so older people are stuck in the corporate world. That’s the reason, it’s nearly impossible to replace them with new blood.
And after 7 years of criss, they’re a entire generation that’s left out and will remain a drag on society.
Damn, Reggie, I am running out of time to wipe out ALL employment.
Don't give up, Munchkins.
I don't know,,, it shouldn't require too much to learn how to package 'to go' Happy Meals or to fill a Taco. The big thing is too save enough for one of those new shiny chinese apple ithingys every couple of years.
Just like it was pretty good strategy to never bet against this human wave of people going through the demographic bubble [boomers] how does one bet that there is a similar demo of gen Y 'ers comeing through without skills, training or ambition that love violent video games and government cheese? Defense investments, or private prisons and rehab? I think also a lot of what would have been middle class inheritances will bet burned up do to the nest never getting empty.
Sudden debt,
You gotta be kidding, after graduating in 2000, it took me 6 years to get a job as an engineer. my first job as a technician I was told I'd be an engineer in 6 months, 9 months later half the factory was made redundant. You didn't need a degree at the start, people advanced quickly but after 2000 it changed.
Jobs dried up, old-timers held on to their jobs and it was hard to catch a break.
My experience, kids work really hard. Then there's old people that blame kids for not prospering in a world they ruined. The US used to have loads of high paying factory jobs, now....
you must have had shitty grades or you arent that smart if it took you SIX YEARS to get a fucking job lol
I work at a big F500 company and can confirm this
the median age at this fucking place is like 65!! a bunch of old fucking pikers
im in my mid 20s and feel like a weirdo
I can attest to that also. I would support a MANDATORY retirement age of 65. Unless you OWN the private company. I think one of the problems facing the younger generation is the sheer greed of the baby boomers. Now for perspective, I am in my 50's. I assure you when I see 60 it will be from my fishing boat in retirement. The baby boomers went through the largest and longest "good time" financially of any generation before or since. Yet it is still not enough. I remember my parents bought a house for $18,000 and sold it about 10 years later for $83,000....these are the gains that generation has seen. I remember in 1982 talking with a friend who asked "do you think the dow will break 3000 this year?"...I said no, guess I was wrong and look where it is now. THEY, the baby boomers where the ones that lived through that epic rise in the stockmarket...but is that enough? No. Now, they just will not get the hell out of the way and allow the next generation to make their money. It really is a pity.
That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard,just because you have money to retire doesn't mean everyone else does.While you were saving a lot of boomers were buying on credit driving the economy and the stockmarket.If that didn't happen you wouldn't have shit.
@ we’re sitting on a demographic timebomb...
Millennials represent the new normal for America, a new normal anticipated by the Jewish-backed 1965 Immigration Act which deliberately limited U.S. immigration to floods of third world peoples at the exclusion of European whites.
As a consequence, this year (2015) the “Millennial” generation is projected to surpass the outsized Baby Boom generation as the nation’s largest living generation, according to population projections released by the U.S. Census Bureau in December 2014.
Who, then, are America’s Millennials? Pew Research in its 2014 report, Millennials in Adulthood, says they are largely composed of Hispanics and Asians:“Millennials are the most racially diverse generation in American history, a trend driven by the large wave of Hispanic and Asian immigrants who have been coming to the U.S. for the past half century, and whose U.S.-born children are now aging into adulthood. In this realm, Millennials are a transitional generation. Some 43% of Millennial adults are non-white, the highest share of any generation. About half of newborns in America today are non-white, and the Census Bureau projects that the full U.S. population will be majority non-white sometime around 2043.”
Pew continues:
The racial makeup of today’s young adults is one of the key factors in explaining their political liberalism. But it is not the only factor. Across a range of political and ideological measures, white Millennials, while less liberal than the non-whites of their generation, are more liberal than the whites in older generations.
The Millennial generation is forging a distinctive path into adulthood. Now ranging in age from 18 to 331, they are relatively unattached to organized politics and religion, linked by social media, burdened by debt, distrustful of people, in no rush to marry— and optimistic about the future.
They are also America’s most racially diverse generation. In all of these dimensions, they are different from today’s older generations. And in many, they are also different from older adults back when they were the age Millennials are now.
Pew Research Center surveys show that half of Millennials (50%) now describe themselves as political independents and about three-in-ten (29%) say they are not affiliated with any religion. These are at or near the highest levels of political and religious disaffiliation recorded for any generation in the quarter-century that the Pew Research Center has been polling on these topics.
At the same time, however, Millennials stand out for voting heavily Democratic and for liberal views on many political and social issues, ranging from a belief in an activist government to support for same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization. (For more on these views, see Chapters 1 and 2.)…
Millennials have also been keeping their distance from another core institution of society—marriage. Just 26% of this generation is married. When they were the age that Millennials are now, 36% of Generation X, 48% of Baby Boomers and 65% of the members of the Silent Generation were married. (See box on page 10 for demographic portraits of America’s four adult generations). Most unmarried Millennials (69%) say they would like to marry, but many, especially those with lower levels of income and education, lack what they deem to be a necessary prerequisite—a solid economic foundation. …
For a full profile of America’s future:
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/03/07/millennials-in-adulthood/
Oh yes:
“Millennials are also the first in the modern era to have higher levels of student loan debt, poverty and unemployment, and lower levels of wealth and personal income than their two immediate predecessor generations (Gen Xers and Boomers) had at the same stage of their life cycles.9 “
Says Pew: “Their difficult economic circumstances in part reflect the impact of the Great Recession (2007-2009) and in part the longer-term effects of globalization and rapid technological change on the American workforce…”
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/16/this-year-millennials-will-overtake-baby-boomers/
Know a guy that is on disability and he is at the bar every weekend. He is in low income housing and I just don't see how he is on disability.
The gubmint's job is to get as many on gubmint programs as possible, that's how. There is very little, if any, screening. It used to be that the gubmint would help people truly in need for a short period of time then stop. Not any more. Vote buying is today's gubmint plan.
Watch the ObamaPhone pusher videos some day. They practically force ObamaPhones on people.
If he wasn't on disability, he may be counted as unemployed and we can't have that.
The cause for record number of workers that are over 55, all-time highs of students that don't want to leave college yet, and people on disabilities and other public assistance are all related. It's the structure of the economy that's the primary cause for these numbers because too much of the money is going up top to people that take much more than they give to the economy which does not leave enough for the rest of us to survive on - there are not enough jobs because they are sending jobs overseas and raiding companies and whatnot. Not to mention their fed is robbing savers via low interest rates.
In other words, it's not the folks on government benefits that are causing the lion's share of our economy's ailments - you could put them all out looking for jobs tomorrow and it would not make much of a difference - instead it's the crooks that run corporate amerika, wall street and their government.
Z
Sending jobs overseas, yes we are. We are buying every fucking cheap foreign made product we can lay our hands on and then crying like children that "they" are sending our jobs overseas. We are stamping our feet madly in support of unions and high wages yet refusing to buy their production. WE but this shit. WE are sending our jobs overseas. WE have responsibility for ALL of this shit and because people see opportunity in servicing our weaknesses, importing goods that we are standing in fucking line to buy, we want to blame them. Grow a set and take some responsibility. People will always be willing and ready to take advantage our weaknesses, be it the selling us some hope and change or a new set of wheels. Are we going to jail everyone who is willing to sell us what we ask for?
1. You got no idea what I buy and what companies I buy them from, so don't tell me about taking responsibility ... or growing a set.
2. There are plenty of products that you can't buy from American companies because corporate amerika sent all the production for those goods to other countries. So, who do you blame for that, Einstein?
3. I'm not going to respond to such a stupid question as: Are we going to jail everyone who is willing to sell us what we ask for?
Don't worry about growing a set. Grow a brain.
Z
We all had a choice. Everyone was bitching about jobs while buying imports. We had a choice and chose poorly. We....America did this, but all we really care about is doing what we please and blaming others for the consequence. We use our ignorance as an excuse and then scream when they manipulate us and treat us as fools. Look the fuck around...look in the mirror....I have.
We had a choice and now find our choices even less desirable, which guarantees we will make even worse choices. It is the nature of humans to not make the tough calls, to take the easiest path. Borrow money, buy cheap imports, elect redistributionists to steal. Easy.
Yes, it's all our fault of course. And when the financial crisis hit in 2008 and 10s of millions of people ended up going on various forms of government assistance, it didn't really have nothing to do with wall street corrupting and imploding our financial system in the process of making themselves filthy rich ... no, not at all. That was just a coincidence. It was actually 10s of millions of people simultaneously becoming lazy and not wanting to work anymore and deciding to live large on the government's teat. That's all it was.
And the ruled should always be held fully responsible for anything and everything that adverely affects them, while our rulers ... well, hell they're just doing to us what we deserve ... because, hey, they're our rulers.
Z
A little disconnect between the avg annual income $43k and the avergae home value $160k. Bankster slavery Mission Accomplished.
"When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him."
Jonathan Swift
"...I doubt very seriously whether anyone will hire me.'
What do you mean, babe? You a fine boy with a good education.'
Employers sense in me a denial of their values.' He rolled over onto his back. 'They fear me. I suspect that they can see that I am forced to function in a century I loathe. This was true even when I worked for the New Orleans Public Library.”
? John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces
Nigga, where is my free shit ??? Answer Me !!!!!!!!!!!!
Bitch you gotta qualify fo dat
Hey the money is free. Get it while it lasts.
The Tylers have nailed it again.
I was chatting with a young chick in the Guitar Center a few years ago and she was a great guitarist. I asked how she learned and she said it was mostly from youtube. It's dawning on me that only a very small percentage of jobs are worthwhile anymore. There's no real need for teachers, office workers, politicians, CEOs, fast food workers, barkeeps, bankers, you name it. They can or will be replaced by robots and software. Aside from engineers and scientists and a few other professions, work is dying and won't be coming back. I'm sure the Fed senses that too but they don't want to explicitly come out and say it. So they constantly distort employment figures. Whoever changed the Fed's mandate to include managing unemployment probably knew what was coming.
The devil himself, bob rubin and summers will be talking about this on thursday at the national press club in dc. Any DC ZH'ers, I would welcome your prescence there.
In the belly of the beast!
Well, at least the esophagus.
A giant mouth, and a giant-er anus.. reminds me of my ex..