Aging boomers face stark economics
Declining finances, rising health care costs threaten a generation Not so long ago, Michael Blattman lived in the upscale Washington, D.C., suburb of Potomac, Md., earning $225,000 a year as senior vice president for a student loan company. As he reached his 50s, it never really occurred to him that his job wouldn’t last forever. “To be perfectly honest, I didn’t really go there,” he said. “Yeah, there was always a risk. Everything in business is a risk.” In January 2008, Blattman, along with 500 other employees, was laid off by his company. With an $188,000 severance, he wasn’t worried at first. “The barometer was always something like five or six months until you landed something comparable,” he said. “So I figured, ‘Oh, OK, six months?’ OK, I could do this for six months. And find the next one. Well, there was no next one.” As his generation confronted an economic storm of historic proportions, Blattman found himself humbled — and living in a one-room apartment. After applying for 600 openings and getting only three interviews, he was still looking after two years. His old boss recently gave him a stark assessment of his prospects. “He said, ‘How’s it going?’” Blattman recalled. “I said, ‘Nobody’s talking to me.’ And he says ‘That’s because you’re an old white guy.’ And that stopped me in my tracks.” Blattman gets some solace from the knowledge that he’s far from alone. More than 4 million baby boomers are unemployed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For many, retirement at 65 is no longer an option. Facing shrinking nest eggs and mounting bills, they need to work, but they wonder if anyone will hire them again. …
The comments on this story are interesting. RPauli has been predicting severe generational hostility when climate change becomes so pronounced it cannot be ignored. If the comments about health care for the elders on this article are any indication, he is correct.