by Dr. Ellen Brandt
Are unreal real estate statistics distorting the perception of Baby Boomer "wealth?" That's just one of several important topics economists and academics simply are not researching - and can't afford to neglect much longer.
One major effect of the Anti-Boomer propaganda campaign, which has simmered just under the surface of our political and cultural life the past several years, is that it has provided a careless excuse to stop doing very much coordinated and in-depth research on the Baby Boomer generation.
Every five minutes, it seems, some think tank or political group promulgates yet another new study on the Hogging-the-Limelight Millennials: how they are "about to change" housing or consumption or debt or technological progress forever and ever.
Meanwhile, the "Gray Population" of citizens over 50 becomes more and more ignored by government, foundation, university, and industry researchers. This, despite the fact, as we have stressed in previous stories, that people age 50 or older already make up 42-43 percent of the population of the United States, Europe, Japan, the rest of the Developed World, and China - a figure that may rise to 48-49 percent of these countries' populations within the next very few years.
When economists and other researchers neglect, as a bloc, over 2 in 5 citizens - over 2 in 5 consumers - over 2 in 5 voters, such neglect becomes not only foolish and misguided, but dangerous, impacting policy decisions that have the power to threaten our economy, our country, and our world.
I believe we have reached that point here and now - and that the situation has to change here and now.
Instead of relying on a web of politically-motivated propaganda aimed against the "Gray Population" - and the pernicious Myths and Misperceptions it has spawned - let us collectively, as Americans and as world citizens, have the courage to perform the hard research that's needed and find out what is truth and what is pure bias and partisan distortion.
Here are just a few topics I'd like top-notch researchers to begin to tackle:
***** Boomers' Real Estate "Wealth" - Fact or Pure Fiction? Let's face it. A very large proportion of the postulated "wealth" of the Baby Boomer population stems from the fact that our generation bought the "everyone needs real estate" spiel hook, line, and sinker.
Male or female, married or single, urban or rural, college-educated or not, Boomers have been overwhelmingly sold on real estate assets since we came of age. And the lion's share of our presumed net worth consists either of real estate we live in - our homes, condominiums, co-ops, or, in some fortunate cases, vacation properties - or real estate we own for professional purposes - small office buildings or office condos, retail stores, restaurants, small job shops and manufacturing facilities, and farms.
But pretty much all of this real estate - for both personal and business use - is "valued" for tax and insurance purposes at what is generally much more - in many cases much-to-the-Nth-degree more - than what it could possibly be sold for, if it were to be liquidated right now.
Anyone who owns a home of any kind will know this from personal experience. With the regular procession of housing Booms and Busts over the past 30 or 40 years, both tax and insurance assessments are much more likely than not to overvalue the typical Boomer house, co-op, or condo at anywhere from 50 to 300 percent more than what could be realized from its immediate sale.
The situation may be even worse, at least in many parts of the country, if we are talking about tax and insurance valuations for farms, farmland, small professional office buildings, or traditional Main Street retail establishments.
So, Dear Researchers, let's figure out how all this over-valuation affects your determinations of how "wealthy" property-rich, cash-poor Boomers are.
***** Boomers' Investment "Wealth" - Most in the Hands of the One-Percenters? Similarly, many of us believe that estimates of Baby Boomers' investment-based assets are now way off - or in any case, mega-skewed towards the deep and dark-pool coffers of just a tiny fraction of absurdly well-off One-Percenters, most connected with Wall Street or venture capital, in their traditional and non-traditional permutations.
The other 99 percent of Boomers - or certainly, the "lower" 90 percent of us - have been the primary victims, metaphorical cannon fodder in the line-of-fire, of the extraordinary Market volatility of the past three decades.
Think of it as a true War of Capital, in which we have been the advance regiments sent into the trenches - where many of our "investments" simply died. What's worse - if we are thinking, as it is high time we should, in terms of wasted education and talent and brainpower and lives - a very large proportion of those who've been wiped out have been professionals and managers who were formerly at much higher rungs on the proverbial Wealth Ladder.
Whether we lost the bulk of our life's savings in the Battle of 1997, the Battle of 2001, the Grand Battle of 2007-2009, the recent Semi-Grand Battle of 2012-2013 (for resource and currency-oriented investors), or any of the myriad earlier Market Battles of the 1980's and 1990's - well, however we were bent, folded, and mutilated by Markets-as-Computer-Games, an absurdly large proportion of Boomers are now paupers, in investment terms.
The current Tech-and-U.S. Dollar- oriented "Boom" Market, many of us feel, was quite literally orchestrated - with outright malicious cynicism - to "redistribute" much of the confiscated wealth of Boomers' life's savings into the pockets of a new crop of Millennial One-Percenters, recently "anointed" via venture capital deals and IPO's - and even some government programs.
Don't believe it, Dear Researchers? Start doing some intensive, honest research to find out if we are right.
***** Anti-Boomer Propaganda Canard #1 - Boomers Were Spendthrifts, So They "Deserve" the Whirlwind They've Reaped: The average Baby Boomer hears this sort of propaganda, jumps up and down, and says, "Phooey."
Again, if there is any truth at all to the Conspicuous Boomer Consumption Myth, it applies squarely to the One - or at most, Few - Percent of very wealthy Boomers, who themselves are probably no worse nor better than the Gilded Crowd which has populated every generation recently, whether we're talking about 90-year-olds or 10-year-olds.
Much of this Myth has been fostered by our irresponsible "MSM," or Mainstream Media, which has glorified Big Spenders - generally Big Obnoxious Spenders - from the worlds of popular music, sports, entertainment, and, occasionally, business, feeding us a never-ending diet of programming featuring millionaire matchmakers, celebrity apprentices, Hollywood personalities to "keep up with," and Tawdry Trollops - excuse me, "real" housewives - from Samarkand, Montevideo, and Timbuktu.
The reality for the Rest of U.S. Boomers is markedly different and always has been: a valiant struggle to pay for such "frills" as groceries, electricity, heating oil, mandatory insurance, and property taxes that grow and grow, while the assets that they're based on diminish and fade into rubble.
All this, while many of us face the Ultimate Triple Whammy: Our life's savings gone, courtesy of financial predation and economic cataclysm. Ageism so pervasive, there's no chance of our ever earning them back. And virtually no programs or special help for our generation - because the faux Propaganda says we're "rich."
***** Anti-Boomer Propaganda Canard #2 - Boomers Have Less Debt Than Other Generations, So All Is Well: This is the first of a series of "Yes, But" propositions.
Boomers do have less debt now than most younger people - but for how long, now that so many of us are close to the edge of a bottomless financial pit?
"Less debt" can be good and bad. And at this point, for Boomers, there's a lot of pure Bad mixed in with the meager Good.
We have "less debt" because we have paid off our mortgages, in many cases, years ago. But as we outlined above, our real property is mostly way-overvalued, often in bad repair, and we can't "put it to use" financially, since we generally can't qualify for home equity loans, which have largely gone the way of the dodo.
We have "less debt" - i.e. investment-leveraged debt - because we no longer have much in the way of investments. Some of those eligible for investment-leveraged debt have made out like bandits in the recent Market "Boom," house-of-cards or not. But it wasn't us.
We have "less debt," because Boomer entrepreneurs, even long-time small business owners, have been more and more ignored and neglected, while both venture capitalists and government programs continue to favor 22-year-olds with trendy software or gaming businesses, deliberately shutting out not only mature founders and business owners, but also the majority of industries and sectors in the full business spectrum.
And we have "less debt," as we stated above, because far from being Spendthrifts, the majority of Boomers are timid and cautious spenders these days, focusing on necessities and shunning all things "discretionary."
While possibly a good thing for the Boomers in question, this last point is problematic for our economy. And like so much else we've outlined, it deserves much further research.
***** Anti-Boomer Propaganda Canard #3 - Boomers Were the First Generation to Benefit Widely From Two-Income Families, So All is Well: The second of our three "Yes, But" propositions.
In our early career years, this was absolutely and categorically true. About as many Boomer women as Boomer men received undergraduate college degrees. And in line with Boomers being - using any metric you choose - the best-educated generation before or since, Boomer women made great strides in the number and prestige of advanced professional degrees awarded - Masters and Doctoral degrees, medical degrees, law degrees, M.B.A.'s, and engineering degrees, as well as many other kinds of credentials.
Naturally, these well-educated Boomer women - and wives - wanted to put their educations to use. And they did.
But there have been several glitches in this rosy "two-income family" scenario.
Educated women tend to marry later, if they marry, and more of them choose to remain single.
Women of all education levels did not tend to make big strides in career advancement and salary parity until about 25 years ago, which didn't help Boomer women in the early parts of their careers.
And all Boomers, men and women alike, have tended to hit a "Gray Ceiling," as rampant Ageism and Age Discrimination has been permitted to take hold over the past two decades.
But most important of all: Boomers have the highest divorce rate of any generation in history. Fully one-half of all Boomers - that's 1 in 2 of us! - are currently divorced, widowed, or never married, a figure that will go even higher, as the "widowed" part of the mix increases.
Even if one subtracts the estimated 10-15 percent of Boomers who identify themselves as "gay" - and these Boomers may be living alone as well - there are now an absolutely staggering number of Baby Boomers who, far from benefiting from "two-income households," are struggling to survive on just one, possibly greatly diminished, income - if they are lucky enough to have an income at all.
***** Anti-Boomer Propaganda Canard #4 - Baby Boomers Own the Majority of Our Nation's Small Businesses, So All is Well: The third of our "Yes, But" propositions.
Boomers were, are, and will be, until our last dying breaths, the most entrepreneurial generation on record. We may be the last American generation to wear the badge of "rugged individual" proudly and happily. In any case, we do love to create new businesses and run them, and we've been up until now willing to take any number of risks to do so.
Alas, many of those risks have not paid off. Every single one of the economic cataclysms roiling the U.S. economy the past several decades has also hit U.S. small business owners - and hit them hard. Outsourcing, the hollowing out of manufacturing and resource sectors, housing crises, market crashes, and a whole series of mini-depressions in Main Street America - all have taken their toll.
Add to these currency volatility, lack of export support for many industries, rising costs of healthcare coverage and insurance, and government policies that place geopolitical concerns far above the needs of most entrepreneurs, and you have a small business universe with many serious problems - no matter whose hands it is in.
Boomer-owned businesses have also, of course, lately fallen victim to the historical aberration in the allocation of Venture Capital, which we discussed above.
Over the past several years, the lion's share of Venture money has gone to just one sector - Technology, especially software and gaming. Many of the founders and early-stage entrepreneurs supported have been extremely young - in their 20s or even their teens - while entrepreneurs over age 40, let alone 50 or 60, have been spurned and neglected. So, of course, has the wider universe of non-Tech businesses - which, in general, tend to produce more profits, more jobs, and more general economic development benefits than "Tech" has ever done.
Time For Some Myth-Busting - and Some Serious New Research
All of these Myths and Misperceptions - assumptions about Baby Boomers' wealth, assets, and financial viability, which may well be proven flat-out wrong - need to be examined consistently and in-depth by a dedicated cadre of Researchers within government, academia, foundations, think tanks, and private industry.
Within our universities, we'd like to propose the formation of new departmental units - or perhaps, whole new departments - focused on, if not "Baby Boomer Studies," at least on "Graying America Studies" or "Generational Studies."
If most top-tier schools now have "Women's Studies" departments, some "Men's Studies" departments, many "African-American Studies" departments, and even a few "LGBT Studies" departments, why in the world are there virtually NO academic departments focusing on the "Gray Population," which will - not may, but will - present the biggest challenges and opportunities for our economy and our culture over the next several decades?
Promoting research projects focusing on the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed," a group consisting of an estimated 400 million individuals worldwide, is a central component of our Bring Back the Meritocracy! Project, about to move from its conceptual to its operational phase. By extension, this research will also focus on the Baby Boomer generation, since Boomers are thought to dominate the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" cohort.
We urge all Boomers to learn about our Meritocracy Project, which we believe will mark a turning point in this nation's attitudes towards Meritocracy; Higher Education; the role of experienced and well-educated citizens; and the pressing need to embrace and utilize the talents, skills, and intelligence of people aged 50 and older.
Now that we've explored the downside of Baby Boomers' financial progress and prospects, the next several articles in this series will look at some potential upside: new ways of working; of earning money; and of forming businesses and other entities which fellow Boomers and other Americans want and need and from which they can benefit.
Ellen Brandt, Ph.D. is Founder of the Bring Back the Meritocracy! project, an ambitious and broad-ranging non-profit, non-partisan, non-controversial effort to help the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" in the U.S. and abroad. Read about it at:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/114091094386273464410/114091094386273464410/about/p/pub
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Boomers Versus Gallup - Why the Recent "Retiring On Time" Poll Is Almost Certainly Flat-Out Wrong
by Dr. Ellen Brandt
We all saw the screaming headlines a few weeks ago: "Contrary to expectations," said the Gallup polling organization, "The Oldest Boomers Are Retiring On Time" (i.e. at age 65).
The headline was based on a telephone poll of about 1400 individuals in the oldest cohort of Baby Boomers, those aged 65-68. (In 2015, the oldest Boomers will turn 69, but the Gallup poll was conducted at the end of 2014.)
In general, as we've said elsewhere, we are skeptical of all telephone-based polls, since they tend to be answered only by those who have a strong - often fanatic - position they wish to state or defend, but are ignored by nearly everybody else. (See http://ellenimpromptu.blogspot.com/2015/01/1000-zealots-versus-sane-majority-why.html )
At least that's true of politically-oriented polls. But I would stake my eye teeth on the probability that the poll in question, about whether or not Boomers are "retiring on time," was not answered - or answered with a great deal of fudging - by many potential respondents, for a whole range of reasons that have nothing to do with politics.
That's because Gallup asked - didn't confirm, just asked - whether the Boomer sample was "still gainfully employed full-time," with follow-up questions about whether they were employed part-time, after the end of full-time employment.
According to Gallup, only about 1/3 of those who chose to respond to their poll, Boomers in the 65-68 age range, said they were working full-time for pay, and that this somehow confirms that, like previous age cohorts, "Boomers are retiring on time."
Oh, yeah, Dear Gallup? Let me propose what you should have asked this little "sample" and what they might have answered you, if you had done so:
Ideal Pollster: Dear Intelligent Boomer, did you leave full-time employment voluntarily, or did your employer force you out of the workforce, perhaps to make room for younger workers clamoring for jobs?
Intelligent Boomer Respondent: You have it exactly right, Ideal Pollster. A whole bunch of us senior and middle managers were essentially told, "leave without a fuss, or we'll trump up an excuse to fire you and jeopardize your - very meager, in my case - pension." My former company has been doing this sort of thing for about 15 years now, and managers over 50 who are able to hold on to their jobs to age 60 or more have been pretty darn lucky.
Ideal Pollster: So you would have liked to remain employed full-time?
Intelligent Boomer: Of course, I would! I'm as healthy as ever, both physically and mentally. My experience level is now sky-high, and I have all the "skill sets" - in finance, computers, marketing, operations - any company might say that they need.
Pollster: But aren't you simply tired of working?
Boomer: No, the opposite. Like most people over 50, my level of knowledge and my creativity quotient have grown stronger, not died on the vine, with every passing year I've worked. I feel I have more gifts than ever to "share with the world," as the old saw goes - and I want to do exactly that.
Pollster: But if that is the case, why have you applied for Medicare and Social Security?
Boomer: Gee, why not? Most people in our age range desperately need every bit of extra cash they can get their hands on. As I said before, I feel I was very lucky, having held on to a full-time job to age 65, as I did. But I have many, many friends from college and graduate school - and I went to great ones - who are literally destitute now, some relying on food stamps and other types of welfare or charity.
Pollster: But how is that possible? Boomers are thought to have amassed so many assets and so much wealth.
Boomer: Amassed it and then lost it, is more like it! Since the massive "financial engineering" of the world economy started, at least as far back as the early 1990s, our Boomer generation has borne the brunt of every major financial dislocation they could throw at us: downsizing, outsourcing, the decimation of middle management, housing crises, market crashes, and the "hollowing out" of both manufacturing and Main Street small business.
Pollster: But aren't some Boomers immensely wealthy?
Boomer: The vaunted "one percent" - more like one percent of one percent, many of us think - is probably a relatively smaller, not larger, group within the Boomer generation than within other generations, like the Gen-Xers. That's because, as we said, Boomers have borne the brunt of the never-ending string of financial crises and dislocations of the past 25-30 years.
Of course, there are some absurdly wealthy Boomers, just as there are absurdly wealthy people in every generation. But note that because Boomers worldwide are, by any standard of measurement, the best-educated generation in world history, before us or after us, we have been more, not less, apt to belong to those groups which have been hardest hit by recent financial cataclysms: homeowners, investors, professionals, middle managers, and small business owners.
Pollster: Don't you think some Boomers are benefiting from the current stock market boom?
Boomer: The already-wealthy ones certainly are. But many of the rest of us were destroyed financially - literally gutted - by the last Great Crash - or the one before that - and have virtually no investments left.
And the same goes for the so-called housing recovery. A large percentage of the Boomers I know have been so pressed for cash, they've had trouble paying for necessary repairs and maintenance, both on their personal real estate - where they live - and their business real estate, like small professional office buildings or retail outlets. If they are forced to sell out now, they'll undoubtedly do so at a loss, not a gain.
In fact, drive around my - or any other - neighborhood with a large percentage of Boomer inhabitants, and you'll view a still very depressed-looking environment, with myriad "For Sale" signs and shuttered restaurants and shops.
Pollster: Getting back to your personal situation, do you expect to seek full-time or part-time employment now, or what will you do with your time?
Boomer: Pretty much every Boomer I know who has left the paid full-time workforce is trying her/his best to patch together some sort of ongoing career, to avoid falling off the proverbial financial cliff.
Many of the "part-time" jobs available are, frankly, not suitable for us - sometimes downright degrading. Boomers who have Ph.D's or law degrees or engineering degrees or who have run large departments or business units are now supposed to work gratefully as retail clerks or busboys or babysitters or . . . . who knows what else? while newly-graduated 22-year-olds are paid large salaries for "coding" and "gaming" jobs?
For one thing, many well-educated Boomers could easily do those "coding" and "gaming" jobs or very quickly be taught how to do them. The Propaganda that Boomers - and for that matter, the many people older than Boomers - are technologically deficient dinosaurs is just that - pure Propaganda. Most college-educated Boomers - and many who were not college-educated - have used computers and been comfortable with all kinds of technology since we were teenagers.
All of the current political talk about training groups like ex-gang members and ex-prisoners and illegal immigrants and every other "disadvantaged" group you can think of - provided, of course, that they are very young - to "code" and "design apps" truly grates on the very souls of most financially-struggling Boomers. It is not only grossly unfair towards us, it is hardly the way to create the best possible cohort of new "coders."
For goodness sake! train some of our generation - at least its under-employed A and A+ intellects - to do these jobs and any other new jobs which require intelligence, sophistication, and creativity - which we Boomers collectively possess in spades.
And frankly, one specific kind of job the developed world has simply given away the past 30 years might truly appeal to us Boomers, if such jobs were "repatriated" now.
I am talking, of course, of IT Help Desk jobs and other jobs related to Internet site assistance. People in our 50s and 60s and beyond have many skills that would make us superb Help Desk employees, as opposed to the mostly very young folk in far-off lands who do them now:
First of all, many of us have used computers for 30 or 40 years and various individual social media, on-line publications, and retail sites as long as they've existed. Second, we're good at research, which is what finding the answers to each and every consumer question takes. Third, we're articulate. Fourth, we're polite. And Fifth, we're patient. Many current holders of Help Desk jobs are inarticulate, impolite, impatient - and overall, such a pain in the neck, a lot of consumers have given up trying to deal with them.
Pollster: Or maybe you could do polling jobs . . . .
Boomer: Wow! You know, we could. You wouldn't happen to be hiring?
Ellen Brandt, Ph.D. is Founder of the Bring Back the Meritocracy! project, an ambitious and broad-ranging non-profit, non-partisan, non-controversial effort to help the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" in the U.S. and abroad. Read about it at:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/114091094386273464410/114091094386273464410/about/p/pub
We all saw the screaming headlines a few weeks ago: "Contrary to expectations," said the Gallup polling organization, "The Oldest Boomers Are Retiring On Time" (i.e. at age 65).
The headline was based on a telephone poll of about 1400 individuals in the oldest cohort of Baby Boomers, those aged 65-68. (In 2015, the oldest Boomers will turn 69, but the Gallup poll was conducted at the end of 2014.)
In general, as we've said elsewhere, we are skeptical of all telephone-based polls, since they tend to be answered only by those who have a strong - often fanatic - position they wish to state or defend, but are ignored by nearly everybody else. (See http://ellenimpromptu.blogspot.com/2015/01/1000-zealots-versus-sane-majority-why.html )
At least that's true of politically-oriented polls. But I would stake my eye teeth on the probability that the poll in question, about whether or not Boomers are "retiring on time," was not answered - or answered with a great deal of fudging - by many potential respondents, for a whole range of reasons that have nothing to do with politics.
That's because Gallup asked - didn't confirm, just asked - whether the Boomer sample was "still gainfully employed full-time," with follow-up questions about whether they were employed part-time, after the end of full-time employment.
According to Gallup, only about 1/3 of those who chose to respond to their poll, Boomers in the 65-68 age range, said they were working full-time for pay, and that this somehow confirms that, like previous age cohorts, "Boomers are retiring on time."
Oh, yeah, Dear Gallup? Let me propose what you should have asked this little "sample" and what they might have answered you, if you had done so:
Ideal Pollster: Dear Intelligent Boomer, did you leave full-time employment voluntarily, or did your employer force you out of the workforce, perhaps to make room for younger workers clamoring for jobs?
Intelligent Boomer Respondent: You have it exactly right, Ideal Pollster. A whole bunch of us senior and middle managers were essentially told, "leave without a fuss, or we'll trump up an excuse to fire you and jeopardize your - very meager, in my case - pension." My former company has been doing this sort of thing for about 15 years now, and managers over 50 who are able to hold on to their jobs to age 60 or more have been pretty darn lucky.
Ideal Pollster: So you would have liked to remain employed full-time?
Intelligent Boomer: Of course, I would! I'm as healthy as ever, both physically and mentally. My experience level is now sky-high, and I have all the "skill sets" - in finance, computers, marketing, operations - any company might say that they need.
Pollster: But aren't you simply tired of working?
Boomer: No, the opposite. Like most people over 50, my level of knowledge and my creativity quotient have grown stronger, not died on the vine, with every passing year I've worked. I feel I have more gifts than ever to "share with the world," as the old saw goes - and I want to do exactly that.
Pollster: But if that is the case, why have you applied for Medicare and Social Security?
Boomer: Gee, why not? Most people in our age range desperately need every bit of extra cash they can get their hands on. As I said before, I feel I was very lucky, having held on to a full-time job to age 65, as I did. But I have many, many friends from college and graduate school - and I went to great ones - who are literally destitute now, some relying on food stamps and other types of welfare or charity.
Pollster: But how is that possible? Boomers are thought to have amassed so many assets and so much wealth.
Boomer: Amassed it and then lost it, is more like it! Since the massive "financial engineering" of the world economy started, at least as far back as the early 1990s, our Boomer generation has borne the brunt of every major financial dislocation they could throw at us: downsizing, outsourcing, the decimation of middle management, housing crises, market crashes, and the "hollowing out" of both manufacturing and Main Street small business.
Pollster: But aren't some Boomers immensely wealthy?
Boomer: The vaunted "one percent" - more like one percent of one percent, many of us think - is probably a relatively smaller, not larger, group within the Boomer generation than within other generations, like the Gen-Xers. That's because, as we said, Boomers have borne the brunt of the never-ending string of financial crises and dislocations of the past 25-30 years.
Of course, there are some absurdly wealthy Boomers, just as there are absurdly wealthy people in every generation. But note that because Boomers worldwide are, by any standard of measurement, the best-educated generation in world history, before us or after us, we have been more, not less, apt to belong to those groups which have been hardest hit by recent financial cataclysms: homeowners, investors, professionals, middle managers, and small business owners.
Pollster: Don't you think some Boomers are benefiting from the current stock market boom?
Boomer: The already-wealthy ones certainly are. But many of the rest of us were destroyed financially - literally gutted - by the last Great Crash - or the one before that - and have virtually no investments left.
And the same goes for the so-called housing recovery. A large percentage of the Boomers I know have been so pressed for cash, they've had trouble paying for necessary repairs and maintenance, both on their personal real estate - where they live - and their business real estate, like small professional office buildings or retail outlets. If they are forced to sell out now, they'll undoubtedly do so at a loss, not a gain.
In fact, drive around my - or any other - neighborhood with a large percentage of Boomer inhabitants, and you'll view a still very depressed-looking environment, with myriad "For Sale" signs and shuttered restaurants and shops.
Pollster: Getting back to your personal situation, do you expect to seek full-time or part-time employment now, or what will you do with your time?
Boomer: Pretty much every Boomer I know who has left the paid full-time workforce is trying her/his best to patch together some sort of ongoing career, to avoid falling off the proverbial financial cliff.
Many of the "part-time" jobs available are, frankly, not suitable for us - sometimes downright degrading. Boomers who have Ph.D's or law degrees or engineering degrees or who have run large departments or business units are now supposed to work gratefully as retail clerks or busboys or babysitters or . . . . who knows what else? while newly-graduated 22-year-olds are paid large salaries for "coding" and "gaming" jobs?
For one thing, many well-educated Boomers could easily do those "coding" and "gaming" jobs or very quickly be taught how to do them. The Propaganda that Boomers - and for that matter, the many people older than Boomers - are technologically deficient dinosaurs is just that - pure Propaganda. Most college-educated Boomers - and many who were not college-educated - have used computers and been comfortable with all kinds of technology since we were teenagers.
All of the current political talk about training groups like ex-gang members and ex-prisoners and illegal immigrants and every other "disadvantaged" group you can think of - provided, of course, that they are very young - to "code" and "design apps" truly grates on the very souls of most financially-struggling Boomers. It is not only grossly unfair towards us, it is hardly the way to create the best possible cohort of new "coders."
For goodness sake! train some of our generation - at least its under-employed A and A+ intellects - to do these jobs and any other new jobs which require intelligence, sophistication, and creativity - which we Boomers collectively possess in spades.
And frankly, one specific kind of job the developed world has simply given away the past 30 years might truly appeal to us Boomers, if such jobs were "repatriated" now.
I am talking, of course, of IT Help Desk jobs and other jobs related to Internet site assistance. People in our 50s and 60s and beyond have many skills that would make us superb Help Desk employees, as opposed to the mostly very young folk in far-off lands who do them now:
First of all, many of us have used computers for 30 or 40 years and various individual social media, on-line publications, and retail sites as long as they've existed. Second, we're good at research, which is what finding the answers to each and every consumer question takes. Third, we're articulate. Fourth, we're polite. And Fifth, we're patient. Many current holders of Help Desk jobs are inarticulate, impolite, impatient - and overall, such a pain in the neck, a lot of consumers have given up trying to deal with them.
Pollster: Or maybe you could do polling jobs . . . .
Boomer: Wow! You know, we could. You wouldn't happen to be hiring?
Ellen Brandt, Ph.D. is Founder of the Bring Back the Meritocracy! project, an ambitious and broad-ranging non-profit, non-partisan, non-controversial effort to help the "Highly-Educated But Under-Employed" in the U.S. and abroad. Read about it at:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/114091094386273464410/114091094386273464410/about/p/pub
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