NYT: Young vs. Old

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Old vs. Young
By DAVID LEONHARDT
Published: June 22, 2012 22 Comments
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IN a partisan country locked in a polarizing campaign, there is no shortage of much discussed divisions: religious and secular, the 99 percent and the 1 percent, red America and blue America.

But you can make a strong case that one dividing line has actually received too little attention. It’s the line between young and old.

Draw it at the age of 65, 50 or 40. Wherever the line is, the people on either side of it end up looking very different, both economically and politically. The generation gap may not be a pop culture staple, as it was in the 1960s, but it is probably wider than it has been at any time since then.

Throughout the 1980s and ’90s, younger and older adults voted in largely similar ways, with a majority of each supporting the winner in every presidential election. Sometime around 2004, though, older voters began moving right, while younger voters shifted left. This year, polls suggest that Mitt Romney will win a landslide among the over-65 crowd and that President Obama will do likewise among those under 40.

Beyond political parties, the two have different views on many of the biggest questions before the country. The young not only favor gay marriage and school funding more strongly; they are also notably less religious, more positive toward immigrants, less hostile to Social Security cuts and military cuts and more optimistic about the country’s future. They are both more open to change and more confident that life in the United States will remain good.

Their optimism is especially striking in the context of their economic troubles. Older Americans have obviously suffered in recent years, with many now fearing a significantly diminished retirement. But the economic slump of the last decade — a mediocre expansion, followed by a terrible downturn — has still taken a much higher toll on the young. Less established in their working lives, they have struggled to get hired and to hold on to jobs.

The wealth gap between households headed by someone over 65 and those headed by someone under 35 is wider than at any point since the Federal Reserve Board began keeping consistent data in 1989. The gap in homeownership is the largest since Census Bureau data began in 1982. The income gap is also at a recorded high; median inflation-adjusted income for households headed by people between 25 and 34 has dropped 11 percent in the last decade while remaining essentially unchanged for the 55-to-64 age group.

If there is a theme unifying these economic and political trends, in fact, it is that the young are generally losing out to the old. On a different subject, Warren E. Buffett, 81, has joked that there really is a class war in this country — and that his class is winning it. He could say the same about a generational war.

Younger adults are faring worse in the private sector and, in large part because they have less political power, have a less generous safety net beneath them. Older Americans vote at higher rates and are better organized. There is no American Association of Non-Retired Persons. “Pell grants,” notes the political scientist Kay Lehman Schlozman, “have never been called the third rail of American politics.”

Over all, more than 50 percent of federal benefits flow to the 13 percent of the population over 65. Some of these benefits come from Social Security, which many people pay for over the course of their working lives. But a large chunk comes through Medicare, and contrary to widespread perception, most Americans do not come close to paying for their own Medicare benefits through payroll taxes. Medicare, in addition to being the largest source of the country’s projected budget deficits, is a transfer program from young to old.

Meanwhile, education spending — the area that the young say should be cut the least, polls show — is taking deep cuts. The young also want the government to take action to slow global warming; Congress shows no signs of doing so. Even on same-sex marriage, where public opinion is moving toward youthful opinion, all 31 states that have held referendums on the matter have voted against same-sex marriage.

Over the long term, obviously, the young have a distinct advantage: they’re not going away. So one of the central questions for the future of American politics is whether today’s 20- and 30-year-olds will hold on to many of the opinions they have today, a pattern that would be less surprising than glib clichés about aging and conservatism suggest. Until recently, as the presidential results from the 1970s through the 1990s make clear, Americans did not grow much more conservative as they aged.

And while today’s young are not down-the-line liberal — they favor private accounts for Social Security and have reservations about government actions to protect online privacy — they certainly lean left.

No one knows exactly why, but there are some suspects. Having grown up surrounded by diversity, they are socially liberal, almost unconsciously so. Many of them also came of age in the (ultimately unpopular) George W. Bush presidency, or the (ultimately popular) Bill Clinton presidency, and pollsters at the Pew Research Center argue that the president during a generation’s formative years casts a long shadow, for better or worse. Hammered by the economic downturn, young voters say they want government to play a significant role in the economy.

These attitudes create a challenge for the Republican Party that is arguably as big as its better known struggles for the votes of Latinos. “We’ve got a generation of young people who are more socially liberal and more open to activist government,” says Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew center, which has done some of the most extensive generational polling. “They are quite distinct.”

Shortly after Mr. Bush won re-election in 2004, just when the age gap was emerging, his chief campaign strategist, Matthew Dowd, wrote a memo to other top Bush aides urging them not to assume that a new Republican majority was emerging. The exit polls, he wrote to Karl Rove and others, showed that younger voters had voted strongly Democratic, and those voters would be in the electorate for a long time to come.

“They don’t think the Republican Party thinks like them,” much as older voters feel alienated by what they see as today’s immigrant-embracing, gay-friendly, activist-government Democratic Party, Mr. Dowd said last week. “I don’t expect these younger voters to wake up all of a sudden when they’re 38 years old and say, ‘I was for gay marriage before, but now I’m against it.’ ”

Still, it would be mistake to assume that today’s young are going to be Democrats for life. Many children of the 1960s, after all, grew up to be Ronald Reagan voters. The political landscape shifts over time. Frustrated by a weak economy and a government that disproportionately benefits the old, younger adults could become ever more reluctant to send tax dollars to Washington. The Republican Party could grow more libertarian and thus more in line with the social views of the young.

What seems clear is that the marketing gurus are finally right: today’s young really are different. They view a boisterously diverse United States as a fact of life, and they view life as clearly better than it used to be. But they are also products of the longest economic slump in 70 years, and they would like a little help. They wish the country would devote more attention to its future, especially on education and the climate. They, of course, will have to live with that future.

[heyjude]

Great read! Thanks for sharing!

[decemberwedding07]

"Beyond political parties, the two have different views on many of the biggest questions before the country. The young not only favor gay marriage and school funding more strongly; they are also notably less religious, more positive toward immigrants, less hostile to Social Security cuts and military cuts and more optimistic about the country’s future. They are both more open to change and more confident that life in the United States will remain good."

I have found this to be true from an anecdotal perspective. I think it will be really interesting to see how this shapes the parties in the future. Among my friends, there's very little difference of opinion when it comes to social issues. Almost everyone has the views above. The differences all come down to the fiscal side of politics. I really hope that as we age, this will continue to be true, and all these BS social issues will stop hogging up all the political capital.

[earlgreyhot]

Jun 24, 2012 9:24:56 GMT -5 decemberwedding07 said:

"Beyond political parties, the two have different views on many of the biggest questions before the country. The young not only favor gay marriage and school funding more strongly; they are also notably less religious, more positive toward immigrants, less hostile to Social Security cuts and military cuts and more optimistic about the country’s future. They are both more open to change and more confident that life in the United States will remain good."

I have found this to be true from an anecdotal perspective. I think it will be really interesting to see how this shapes the parties in the future. Among my friends, there's very little difference of opinion when it comes to social issues. Almost everyone has the views above. The differences all come down to the fiscal side of politics. I really hope that as we age, this will continue to be true, and all these BS social issues will stop hogging up all the political capital.

God, I hope so too. I feel like the gay marriage and all the antiwoman legislation is the just the old conservative guard trying to go out with a bang. I'm not sure long it will take to swing the other, or how extensive the damage of ignoring the real problems of our day will be. But I, like my young counterparts, am optimistic that it will get better.

[lys]

Most of the seniors have had decidedly different life experiences and lived thru several financially difficult times.
Most of the younger generations grew up in more financially stable times and this is their first experience with any true hardships.
Right now demographically there are more seniors than younger people and seniors vote.

[ttt]

Jun 24, 2012 14:36:35 GMT -5 lys said:

Most of the seniors have had decidedly different life experiences and lived thru several financially difficult times.
Most of the younger generations grew up in more financially stable times and this is their first experience with any true hardships.
Right now demographically there are more seniors than younger people and seniors vote.

I disagree. Today's 65 year old was born in 1946 and grew up during some of this country's most prosperous years ever. He or she most likely never worried about providing his family with health insurance, was more likely to retire from a job that had a pension than her children or grandchildrens generation. Today's seniors were much better off in their 20s, 30s and 40s than those age groups today, and they are much better off in their golden years than their children or grandchildren are likely to be.

[ESF]

Old people vote. Young people don't. Hence the pandering.

[lys]

ttt - you are forgetting that seniors of today lived thru gas lines, buying homes at 12-18% interest rates, lived thru the Carter administration with wage freezes and run away inflation.
The baby boomers are just now entering the SS/Medicare system and are the "youngsters" of the retired set. The baby boomers are just as divided as the younger set as far as finances are concerned. There are those who prospered and those who need to continue to work and cannot afford to retire, just as in the younger set you see some who earn over 100K or more n their 20's and 30's and those who are stuck working for not much over minimum wage. One size fits all is not appropriate for either set.

[marie427]

Given the current ages of Baby Boomers, we've got at least another 20 years of old-people-pandering. By the time is young'uns are old, how jaded are we going to be? As long as young people don't vote (which is kind of a horse and cart situation), will we ever grow old and care? We've gotten used to being a less important demographic.

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2012 15:44:35 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Jun 24, 2012 14:36:35 GMT -5 lys said:

Most of the seniors have had decidedly different life experiences and lived thru several financially difficult times.
Most of the younger generations grew up in more financially stable times and this is their first experience with any true hardships.
Right now demographically there are more seniors than younger people and seniors vote.

I don't know if that is true anymore. These days, seniors are increasingly baby boomers, not depression era. They have seen and benefited from much prosperity - post war and in the 80s. Some have squandered that opportunity. People in their late 30s and 40s graduated into a financially unstable climate and have watched things bounce around since (dotcom boom, bust and recession, 9/11, housing market boom, bust and recession).

But the baby boomers were here right along with the 30 year olds during the dotcom bust, 9/11 and the latest recession - as well as the recession in the early 90s, the early 80s and the just generally tough 1970s. They had more to lose during the housing crisis and recession, being more invested in both housing and the stock market.

It is amusing though that both sides probably look at the other and think that the other side had it easier and are soft.
It amuses

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2012 7:30:21 GMT -5 @septimus said:

Draw it at the age of 65, 50 or 40. Wherever the line is, the people on either side of it end up looking very different, both economically and politically.

This stupid line irritated the shit out of me. It's got to matter where you draw the line, LOL.

[Deleted]

Jun 24, 2012 20:59:37 GMT -5 @bunnybean said:

My husband and I have been financially unstable since 2009 and we're not even 30. I don't want to hear how tough old people have it.

But is your instability related to the recession or your age?

I know people in their 40s and 50s who have been out of work for over a year, and my 68 year old father was laid off for a while too. I'm not saying older people have it tougher than younger people - it's tough everywhere and even tougher on people with less career experience.
I think turning this into "young vs old" doesn't do anyone any good - and in fact only serves to hurt the young more.