The Michael Moore chapter epigraph is from the interview with him in Rolling Stone, May 3–12, 2007.
1. See Robert Rich, Supercapitalism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), and Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (New York: Norton, 2008).
2. “The New Global Elite,” Newsweek, December 29, 2008.
3. John Zogby, The Way We’ll Be (New York: Random House, 2008), 93.
4. The question of national social cohesion in Canada—and the split between the well-educated classes and the rest of the population—has been raised by the Liberal Party leader of the Canadian parliament, Michael Ignatieff, in his book True Patriot Love: Four Generations in Search of Canada (Toronto: Viking Canada, 2009).
5. Dick Meyer, Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in a New Millennium (New York: Crown, 2008), 209.
6. Judith Warner, “I Feel It Coming Together,” New York Times, October 15, 2009.
7. Barbara Gordon, “Who Will Be ‘Me’ for Me?” My Generation, August 2002.
8. CNN Exit Poll, November 5, 2008, www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1.
9. Ken Dychtwald, Age Power: How the 21st Century Will Be Ruled by the New Old (New York: Tarcher/Putnam, 1999).
10. Daniel Okrent, “Twilight of the Boomers,” Time, June 12, 2000.
11. See Peter G. Peterson, Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do about It (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004), and Gray Dawn: How the Coming Age Wave Will Transform America—and the World (New York: Times Books/Random House, 1999).
12. See Ralph Turner and Lewis Killian, Collective Behavior, 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1987), 17–23.
13. See Alicia H. Munnell, Anthony Webb, and Luke Delorme, A New National Retirement Risk Index, Issue in Brief, no. 48 (Boston: Boston College Center for Retirement Research, June 2006); Alicia H. Munnell, Mauricio Soto, Anthony Webb, Francesca Golub-Sass, and Dan Muldoon, Health Care Costs Drive Up the National Retirement Risk Index, Issue in Brief, no. 8–3 (Boston: Boston College Center for Retirement Research, February 2008).
14. See Gary T. Marx and Douglas McAdam, Collective Behavior and Social Movements: Process and Structure (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1994).
15. Tom Brokaw, Boom! Voices of the Sixties (New York: Random House, 2007), 578.
16. Michael Kinsley, “The Least We Can Do,” Atlantic Monthly, October 2010.
17. George Anders, interview with the author, Claremont, CA, November 12, 1998.
18. Peterson, Gray Dawn and Running on Empty; Laurence J. Kotlikoff and Scott Burns, The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America’s Economic Future (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004); Alice M. Rivlin and Joseph R. Antos, eds., Restoring Fiscal Sanity: The Health Spending Challenge (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2007); James Schulz and Robert Binstock, Aging Nation: The Economics and Politics of Growing Older in America (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2006); and Andrew L. Yarrow’s Forgive Us Our Debts: The Intergenerational Dangers of Fiscal Irresponsibility (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008).
19. Dana Milbank, “Smile—You’re on Social Security!” Washington Post, October 16, 2007, A2.
20. Jacob Hacker, The Great Risk Shift (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
21. Quoted in Anne Tergesen, “How to Fix 401(k)s,” Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2008.
22. On the basis of his substantial survey research data, the Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam reluctantly concluded that immigration-driven ethnic diversity weakens interpersonal trust and the web of friendships and associations that are the glue of civic society. See Robert D. Putnam, “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century: The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture,” Scandinavian Political Studies 30, no. 2 (2007): 151.
23. Ibid.
24. See William H. Frey, “America’s Regional Demographics in the Early 21st Century: The Role of Seniors, Boomers and New Minorities,” Public Policy and Aging Report 18 (Winter 2008): 1–31.
25. Peter Schrag, California: America’s High-Stakes Experiment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006).
26. Dowell Myers, Immigrants and Boomers: Forging a New Social Contract for the Future of America (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007); Michael Lind, “A Citizen-Based Social Contract,” New America Foundation, Washington, DC, July 2007, www.newamerica.net/files/NSC%20Citizen%20Principles%20Paper%207–10–07.pdf; Mark Schmitt, “The American Social Contract: From Drift to Mastery,” New America Foundation, Washington, DC, November 2007, www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/american_social_contract_drift_mastery; Cliff Zukin, “The American Public and the Next Social Contract,” New America Foundation, Washington, DC, February 2008, http://newamerica.net/publications/policy/american_public_and_next
_social_contract.
27. See Alan Berube et al., State of Metropolitan America: On the Front Lines of Demographic Transformation (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2010).
The chapter epigraph is from Howard J. Fineman, “The Last Hurrah,” Newsweek, January 23, 2006.
1. Mary S. Furlong, Turning Silver into Gold (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Financial Times Press, 2007).
2. For a somewhat similar account of a more recent conference on boomers as business opportunity, see Michael Winerip, “The Fountain of Reinvention,” New York Times, April 22, 2010.
3. Jennifer Mann, “Baby Boomers Become the Forgotten Consumer,” Kansas City Star, August 4, 2008. One year later, the marketing psychologist Paco Underhill offered the same lament: “Sixty percent of discretionary income is in the hands of people age 55 and over,” he observed. “But the marketing engines are in the hands of people who are thirty-somethings who are interested in selling to others like themselves.” “Shopping Shift: Interview with Pico Underhill,” PBS News Hour, April 24, 2009.
4. William Hupp, “The Misunderstood Generation,” Advertising Age, February 5, 2008.
5. Metlife Mature Market Institute, Boomer Bookends: Insights into the Oldest and Youngest Boomers (Westport, CT: Metlife Mature Market Institute, February 2008), 17.
6. “Widely Held Attitudes to Different Generations,” Harris Interactive Survey, August 20, 2008, www.marketresearchworld.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2243&Itemid=77.
7. Steve Slon, interview with the author, Washington, DC, February 15, 2007.
8. Joe Queenan, “Please Don’t Call Us That!” AARP.org, www.aarp.org/personal-growth/transitions/info-07–2010/what_not_to_call_boomers.html.
9. Charles Duhigg, “Six Decades at the Center of Attention, and Counting,” New York Times, January 6, 2008.
10. Randall Stross, “Do Boomers Want a Web Home of Their Own?” New York Times, February 10, 2008.
11. See Paul Briand, “The Continued Rise—and Fall—of Boomer Sites,” Examiner.com, July 13, 2009, www.examiner.com/baby-boomer-in-national/the-continued-rise-and-fall-of-boomer-sites; also Tanika White, “Boomers Go Online to Stay Connected,” Baltimore Sun, April 27, 2008.
12. Diana Wagman, “The Cancer Drug,” Los Angeles Times, December 22, 2007.
13. Marc Fisher, interview with the author, Claremont, CA, February 28, 2007.
14. Bill Novelli, interview with the author, Washington, DC, December 5, 2007.
15. Karl Mannheim, “The Problem of Generations” [1923], in Essays on the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Oxford University Press, 1952).
16. For an excellent and more detailed discussion of these related concepts, see Duane F. Alwin, Ryan J. McCammon, and Scott M. Hofer, “Studying Baby Boom Cohorts within a Demographic and Developmental Context: Conceptual and Methodological Issues,” in Baby Boomers Grow Up, ed. Susan Krauss Whitbourne and Sherry L. Willis (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006), 45–74. See also Harry R. Moody, “Controversy 11. Aging Boomers: Boom or Bust?” in Aging: Concepts and Controversies, 6th ed., ed. Harry R. Moody (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press/Sage Publications, 2010), 429–32.
17. Robert Binstock, “Older Voters and the 2008 Election,” Gerontologist 49, no. 5 (2010): 697–701.
18. Mannheim, “Problem of Generations,” 301.
19. See Pew Research Center, “The Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change,” February 24, 2010, http://pewsocialtrends.org/assets/pdf/millennials-confident-connected-open-to-change.pdf. Metlife Mature Market Institute, Demographic Generational Profiles, 2010, http://www.metlife.com/mmi/research/generational-profiles.html#introduction.
20. Key studies include Landon Y. Jones, Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation (New York: Ballantine Books, 1980); Paul Light, Baby Boomers (New York: Norton, 1988); William Strauss and Neil Howe, Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069 (New York: William Morrow, 1991); Ken Dychtwald, Age Power: How the 21st Century Will Be Ruled by the New Old (New York: Jeremy Tarcher/Putnam 1999); Michael Gross, My Generation: Fifty Years of Sex, Drugs, Rock, Revolution, Glamour, Greed, Valor, Faith, and Silicon Chips (New York: HarperCollins, 2000); Diane Macunovich, Birth Quake: The Baby Boom and Its Aftershocks (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Steve Gillon, Boomer Nation: The Largest and Richest Generation Ever and How It Changed America (New York: Free Press, 2004); Marc Fisher, Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation (New York: Random House, 2006); J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman, Generation Ageless: How Baby Boomers Are Changing the Way We Live Today (New York: HarperCollins, 2007); and a recent overview by Alan Greenblatt, “Aging Baby Boomers,” CQ Researcher 17, no. 37 (October 19, 2007): 865–88.
21. Jones, Great Expectations, 33.
22. Strauss and Howe, Generations, 368.
23. Pew Research Center, “Millennials.”
24. Light, Baby Boomers; Smith and Clurman, Generation Ageless, 20.
25. Strauss and Howe, Generations, 309.
26. Peter Travers, “Steven Spielberg,” Rolling Stone: 40th Anniversary Issue, May 3–17, 2007, 94.
27. Gross, My Generation, 10.
28. Leonard Steinhorn, The Greater Generation (New York: St. Martin’s Press/Thomas Crowne Books, 2006).
29. Gillon, Boomer Nation, 285.
30. Strauss and Howe, Generations, 421.
31. Jones, Great Expectations, 306.
32. Tom Wolfe, “The ‘Me’ Decade and the Third Great Awakening,” New York Magazine, August 23, 1976, 26–40.
33. Light, Baby Boomers, 148.
34. Ibid., 197–98.
35. Ibid., 204.
36. Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000).
37. Carol Keegan et al., Boomers at Midlife: The AARP Life Stage Study (Washington, DC: AARP Knowledge Management, 2002). A 2004 follow-up survey reinforced these findings: “By and large boomers believe that they can shape their future and that what happens in the future mostly depends on them.” Carol Keegan et al., Boomers at Midlife, 2004: The AARP Life Stage Study (Washington, DC: AARP Knowledge Management, 2004). There were some variations in these patterns by race, class, and education—but surprisingly few by gender. The attitudes of Older Boomers (aged forty-six to fifty-six) resembled those of Younger Boomers (age thirty-eight to forty-five) rather than those of respondents who were older than fifty-seven.
38. Smith and Clurman, Generation Ageless, 29.
39. Ibid., 124.
40. The Metlife Report on Early Boomers (Westport, CT: Metlife Mature Market Institute/Peter Francese LLC, September 2010).
41. Ibid.
42. Annamaria Lusardi and Olivia S. Mitchell, “Baby Boomer Retirement Security: The Roles of Planning, Financial Literacy, and Housing Wealth,” Ann Arbor, Michigan, University of Michigan Retirement Research Center, 2006, www.pensionresearchcouncil.org/publications/pdf/boomer.pdf.
43. Metlife Mature Market Institute, “Highlights of the MetLife Study of Boomers: Ready to Launch,” 2007, www.metlife.com/assets/cao/mmi/publications/consumer/mmi-consumer-publications-boomers-ready-launch-hlghts.pdf.
44. David Rosnick and Dean Baker, The Wealth of the Baby Boom Cohorts after the Collapse of the Housing Bubble (Washington, DC: Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2009); Moody’s estimate cited in Susan Tompor, “Boomers See Retirement Slip Farther Away,” Detroit Free Press, September 20, 2010.
45. Macunovich, Birth Quake, 31.
46. See Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tiagi, The Two-Income Trap (New York: Basic Books, 2003).
47. Mary Elizabeth Hughes and Angela M. O’Rand, The Lives and Times of Baby Boomers (New York: Russell Sage Foundation and Population Reference Bureau, 2004).
48. William Frey, “IV: Age,” in The State of Metropolitan America: On the Front Lines of Demographic Transformation (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2010), 78; also Jack VanDerhei, “The Impact of the Recent Financial Crisis on 401(k) Account Balances,” Employee Benefit Research Institute Issue Brief, no. 326 (February 2009).
49. Baby Boomers Envision Retirement II (Washington, DC: AARP, May 2004); Merrill Lynch, The New Retirement Survey (New York: Merrill Lynch, 2005).
50. The “Wealth Builders” (31 percent) had the highest average incomes ($84,000) and the highest average assets ($214,000) and were tied with “Leisure Lifers” for highest percent white (82 percent). Driven by desire for material success and security, they were the most likely to describe themselves as workaholics and least likely to try and reinvent themselves (16 percent), enhance their spiritual life (25 percent), or volunteer (23 percent) during retirement. The 18 percent of the sample who were “Empowered Trailblazers” were second in average income ($83,000) and average assets ($188,000—does not include home equity) and were 72 percent white. They looked forward to a very active retirement of travel, exercise, additional education, and “new directions” and were the most likely to contribute to social causes and charities. The 20 percent of respondents classified as “Anxious Idealists” had the third-highest average income ($66,000) and fourth-highest average assets ($176,000) and were 68 percent white. Though they were the most likely to believe in “putting others first” (53 percent) and wanted to leave a significant inheritance to family and charitable organizations, they were worried that they had not adequately provided for their retirement needs. Thirteen percent of sample respondents were classified as “Leisure Lifers,” half of whom had already retired. They had the fourth-highest average income ($64,000) and the third-highest average assets ($176,000) and were tied with the “Wealth Builders” for the highest percentage of whites (82 percent). More than three-quarters defined retirement in terms of rest and relaxation; they were the least likely to continue working, even to make up for financial shortfalls. Instead, 94 percent of them felt that their generation was entitled to full Social Security benefits and looked to government entitlements and their savings to make ends meet in retirement. At the bottom were the “Stretched and Stressed,” 18 percent of survey recipients; this group was 66 percent white and had an average income of $60,000 and assets averaging $60,000.
51. Two more studies also segment boomers in terms of retirement dreams and general outlook. In Generation Ageless, Smith and Clurman’s 2006 telephone survey sample of 1,023 boomers delineated six segments in terms of “future dreams.” The “Re-activists” (15 percent) desired to remain active or reengage with social movements; they were the wealthiest, with 36 percent having an annual household income above $100,000. The “Disconnected” (8 percent) were sympathetic to the aims of the “Re-activists” but were more passive, preferring to tend to their own comfort; 35 percent had household incomes above $100,000. The “Sideliners” (20 percent) were more aloof and self-involved; 30 percent had incomes above $100,000. The “Maximizers” (15 percent) wanted to live life to the fullest, staying active and involved and accumulating experiences; 24 percent earned above $100,000. The “Straight Arrows” (33 percent) lived by traditional values and religion; 24 percent of them earned $100,000 or more. Finally, the “Due Diligents” (10 percent) were more cautious and wanted to enjoy “safe adventures,” in part, perhaps, because only 18 percent earned $100,000 or more.
A 2006 Focalyst/AARP nationally representative sample survey of thirty-five thousand respondents over age forty-five yielded five segments structured more strongly by age and gender. “Dynamic Go-Getters” were the youngest (in their forties), wealthiest (average household income of $106,141), and best educated (71 percent college graduates). “Comfortable Everyman” was the second wealthiest (average household income of $99,737) and second best educated (45 percent college graduates) category, composed of almost exclusively age fifty-something men. Their counterpart was an almost all-female third boomer segment, “Today’s Earth Mothers,” socially and environmentally conscious women in their fifties; 37 percent had a college degree, and their average household income was $70,157. The “Stretched 40-Somethings” were just that: “average” working- and middle-class men and women (average household income $51,034) who were struggling to make ends meet; only 4 percent had college degrees. At the bottom were the “Downtrodden,” individuals and couples in their fifties; 37 percent of them were college graduates, and they had an average household income of $37,050. “The Focalyst View Syndicated Report,” Fall 2006, obtainable from www.focalyst.com.
52. Emilio Pardo, interview with the author, Washington, DC, June 15, 2006.
53. Richard Katz, telephone interview with the author, January 20, 2007.
54. Carleen MacKay, telephone interview with the author, November 21, 2006. See also Carleen MacKay, Phil Neubold, and Brad Taft, Return of the Boomers: A Leader’s Guide (Scottsdale, AZ: Cambridge Media, LLC, 2008).
55. Andrew Johnson, telephone interview with the author, January 26, 2007.
Chapter epigraphs are from C. Wright Mills, White Collar (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950); Robert Reich, Supercapitalism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007). The section epigraph is an anonymous Web post quoted in Jane Gross’s “Single, Childless and ‘Downright Terrified,’ ” New York Times, July 29, 2008.
1. C. Wright Mills, White Collar (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950).
2. Robert Reich, Supercapitalism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007).
3. See Alan Berube et al., State of Metropolitan America: On the Front Lines of Demographic Transformation (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2010).
4. Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World (New York: Norton, 2008).
5. Peggy Noonan, “Brave New World,” Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2008.
6. David Shribman, “Today’s Median Age Voters Grew Up in a Different America,” Real Clear Politics, January 19, 2008.
7. Mathew Continetti, “Out with the Old: Don’t Trust a Congressman over the Age of 50,” Weekly Standard, May 31, 2010.
8. Roberta Garner, Social Movements and Ideologies (New York: McGraw Hill, 1996), 86–92.
9. Ibid., 93–99. See also Ben Wattenberg, Fewer (Chicago: Ivin R. Dee, 2004); Phillip Longman, The Empty Cradle (New York: New America Books/Basic Books, 2004).
10. Mark Penn, “The Declining Soccer Mom,” Wall Street Journal, October 7, 2009.
11. Jacob Hacker, The Great Risk Shift (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006).
12. Ibid., 6.
13. Reich, Supercapitalism, 126.
14. “Big Picture Series: Minnesota Voters Weigh Candidates’ Economic Plans,” PBS News Hour, January 29, 2008.
15. “Retirement and Medical Bills Top Financial Worries,” Employee Benefit News, April 29, 2010, http://ebn.benefitnews.com/news/retirement-medical-bills-top-financial-worries.
16. Matt Greenwald, interview with the author, Washington, DC, September 13, 2007.
17. Geoffrey Sanzenbacher, Estimating Pension Coverage Using Different Data Sets, Issue in Brief, no. 51 (Boston: Boston College Center for Retirement Research, August 2006).
18. See Stephan Fitch, “Gilt-Edged Pensions,” Forbes, February 16, 2009. See also “Majority of Fortune 100 Companies Offer Only Defined Contribution Plans to New Salaried Employees,” press release, Watson Wyatt Worldwide, May 11, 2009, www.watsonwyatt.com/render.asp?catid=1&id=21177; Sandra Block, “Traditional Company Pensions Are Going Away Fast,” USA Today, May 21, 2009.
19. Employee Benefit Research Institute, “Retirement Trends in the United States over the Past Quarter Century,” Factsheet, June 2007, www.ebri.org/pdf/publications/facts/0607fact.pdf.
20. Metlife Mature Market Institute, “Boomers Ready to Launch: Metlife Mature Market Institute Takes First Look at the Baby Boomers Turning 62,” December 27, 2007, www.metlife.com/assets/cao/mmi/publications/mmi-pressroom/mmi-press-releases-boomers-ready-to-launch1226.pdf.
21. Fidelity Research Institute, Fidelity Research Institute Retirement Index, Research Insights Brief (Boston: Fidelity Research Institute, March 2007).
22. Jack VanDerhei, Sarah Holden, Craig Copeland, and Luis Alonso, “401K Plan Asset Allocation, Account Balances and Loan Activity in 2006,” Employee Benefit Research Institute Issue Brief, no. 308 (August 2007).
23. Ruth Helman, Mathew Greenwald and Associates, Jack VenDerhei, and Craig Copeland, “The Retirement System in Transition: The 2007 Retirement Confidence Survey,” Employee Benefit Research Institute Issue Brief, no. 304 (April 2007).
24. Thomas Kostigen, “The Inheritance Bust,” Marketwatch, February 5, 2008, www.marketwatch.com/story/big-baby-boomer-inheritances-going-bust.
25. Fidelity Investments, “Fidelity Investments Couples Retirement Study: Executive Summary,” June 2009, http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/fidelity/38691/docs/38691-NEWExecSum_Couples2009_060509FINAL.pdf.
26. Scholars at the UCLA Center for Policy Research have authored a number of papers on Latino baby boomers, including Zachery D. Gassoumis, Kathleen H. Wilber, and Fernando Torres-Gil, Latino Baby Boomers: A Hidden Population, Policy Brief No. 3 (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Policy Research on Aging, July 2008).
27. Baby Boomers Envision Their Retirement (Washington, DC: AARP, February 1999); Baby Boomers Envision Retirement II (Washington, DC: AARP, May 2004); Merrill Lynch, The New Retirement Survey (New York: Merrill Lynch, 2005).
28. Alicia H. Munnell, Mauricio Soto, Anthony Webb, Francesca Golub-Sass, and Dan Muldoon, A New National Retirement Risk Index, Issue in Brief, no. 48 (Boston: Boston College Center for Retirement Research, June 2006).
29. Alicia Munnell, Mauricio Soto, Anthony Webb, Francesca Golub-Sass, and Dan Muldoon, Health Care Costs Drive Up the National Retirement Risk Index, Issue in Brief, no. 8–3 (Boston: Boston College Center for Retirement Research, February 2008.
30. Carla Fried, “Have You Budgeted $250,000 for Health Care in Retirement?” CBS Moneywatch, March 23, 2010, http://moneywatch.bnet.com/retirement-planning/blog/retirement-beat/have-you-budgeted-250000-for-health-care-in-retirement/469/. See also Richard W. Johnson and Corin Mommaerts, Will Health Care Costs Bankrupt Aging Boomers? (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, February 2010). They predict that median, annual real out-of-pocket costs for Americans over age sixty-five will double (in 2008 dollars) from $2,600 in 2010 to $6,200 in 2040.
31. G. Smolka, L. Purvis, and C. Figueiredo, Health Coverage among 50–64 Year Olds, Data Digest (Washington, DC: AARP Policy Institute, 2007).
32. Fidelity Research Institute, Fidelity Research Institute Retirement Index; Kenneth Greene, “Spending and Spending Some More: Expenses in Later Life Are Proving to Be Bigger and More Unpredictable Than Many Retirees Anticipated,” Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2007.
33. Heather Stern, telephone interview with the author, December 20, 2007.
34. Victoria Stagg Elliot, “Older Baby Boomers Sicker, Using More Care Than Earlier Generations,” American Medical Association, Amednews.com, April 19, 2010, www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/04/19/bisb0419.htm. See also Virginia Fried and Amy B. Bernstein, Health Care Utilization among Adults Aged 55–64 Years: How Has It Changed over the Past 10 Years? Data Brief No. 32 (Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, 2010); Rob Stein, “Baby Boomers Appear to Be Less Healthy Than Parents,” Washington Post, April 20, 2007.
35. Ibid.
36. U.S. Census Bureau, Fertility of American Women: 2006, Current Population Reports, P20–558 (Washington, DC, August 2008).
37. William Frey, Mapping the Growth of Older America: Seniors and Boomers in the Early 21st Century, Living Cities Census Series (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, May 2007).
38. Jonathan Peterson, “A New Industry of Caregivers,” Los Angeles Times, January 6, 2008.
39. Elizabeth Marquardt, “The New Alone,” Washington Post, January 28, 2008, B1.
40. John Gist and Carlos Figueiredo, In Their Dreams: What Will Boomers Inherit? Data Digest (Washington, DC: AARP Public Policy Institute, May 2006); see also Eduardo Porter, “Inherit the Wind; There’s Little Else Left,” New York Times, March 26, 2006; Kelly K. Spors, “Counting on Getting an Inheritance? Better Make Other Plans,” Wall Street Journal, October, 26, 2005; and Mitja Ng-Baumhacki, John Gist, and Carlos Figueiredo, Pennies from Heaven, Data Digest (Washington, DC: AARP Public Policy Institute, 2003).
41. Kostigen, “Inheritance Bust.”
42. See William Frey and C. D. Ross, America’s Demography in the New Century: Aging Baby Boomers and New Immigrants as Major Players, Policy Brief (Santa Monica, CA: Milken Institute, 2000); William H. Frey, America’s Regional Demographics in the ’00s Decade: The Role of Seniors, Boomers and New Minorities, Special Report (New York: Research for Housing America, 2006).
43. Sam Roberts, “New Demographic Racial Gap Emerges,” New York Times, May 17, 2007.
44. Sam Roberts, “Minorities Often a Majority of the Population under 20,” New York Times, August 7, 2008; see also William Frey, “Race and Ethnicity,” in Berube et al., State of Metropolitan Metro America.
45. Dennis Cauchon, “Generation Gap? About $200,000,” USA Today, May 20, 2007.
46. Julia B. Isaacs, Isabel V. Sawhill, and Ron Haskins, Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America (Washington, DC: Economic Mobility Project/Brookings Institution, 2008).
47. Robert D. Putnam, “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-first Century: The 2006 Johan Skytte Prize Lecture,” Scandinavian Political Studies 30, no. 2 (2007): 151.
48. See Kevin Starr, Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950–1963 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
49. Cathleen Decker, “Pat Brown’s California Takes a Beating in Sacramento,” Los Angeles Times, July 26, 2009.
50. Shana Alex Lavarreda, E. Richard Brown, Livier Cabezas, and Dylan H. Roby, Number of Uninsured Jumped to More Than Eight Million from 2007 to 2009, UCLA Health Policy Research Brief (Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, March 2010).
51. Steve Lopez, “At a Free Clinic, Scenes from the Third World,” Los Angeles Times, August 16, 2009.
52. Cathleen Decker, “Down but Not Out, Imperial County Looks to a Better Future,” Los Angeles Times, May 9, 2010.
53. Mark Baldassare, Dean Bonner, Sonja Petek, and Nicole Wilcoxon, Californians and Their Government (San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California, January 2010). Response of “voters” is from Evan Halper, “State Voters Largely Back Health Law,” Los Angeles Times, April 4, 2010.
54. Robert J. Samuelson, “California’s Reckoning—and Ours,” Newsweek, August 3, 2009.
55. Peter Schrag, Paradise Lost (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); and California: America’s High-Stakes Experiment (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); Dowell Myers, Immigrants and Boomers: Forging a New Social Contract for the Future of America (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2007). See also Mark Baldassare, California’s Exclusive Electorate (San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California, 2004).
56. Dan Walters, “California Faces Huge Upheaval,” Sacramento Bee, May 4, 2008.
57. See Justin Berton, “Whites in State ‘Below the Replacement’ Level,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 5, 2010.
58. Dowell Myers and John Pitkin, “The New Place of Birth Profile of Los Angeles and California Residents in 2010,” University of Southern California School of Policy, Planning and Development, Los Angeles, March 2010, www.usc.edu/schools/sppd/research/popdynamics/pdf/Myers_Pitkin_Placeof-
BirthReport_033110.pdf. The figure on the city of Los Angeles is from George Will, “Trickle Down Misery,” Newsweek, May 17, 2010.
59. Jeffrey L. Rabin, “Shifting Demographics: Immigrants Could Be Key to Boomers’ Security,” interview with Dowell Myers, February 27, 2007.
60. California Department of Education Data and Statistics, “Public School Summary Statistics, 2005–06,” June 2006, www.cde.ca.gov/ds/sd/cb/sums05.asp; Terence Chea, “Budget Crisis Forces Deep Cuts at California Schools,” Associated Press, June 21, 2009, http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090621/D98V7T001.htm.
61. Jay P. Greene and Marcus A. Winters, “Public High School Graduation and College Readiness Rates: 1991–2002,” Education Working Paper No. 8, Center for Civic Innovation, Manhattan Institute, New York, February 2005.
62. Cari Tuna, “University of California Plans to Slash Spending,” Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2010.
63. Jack Citrin, a University of California, Berkeley professor with expertise on California state politics, maintains that Prop. 13’s effects were not as drastic as Schrag suggests. “In the past 30 years, California, once a high tax and high services state in the rankings of American states, moved down both ladders and now is in the middle of both tax and overall spending rankings.” Jack Citrin, “Proposition 13 and the Transformation of California Government,” California Journal of Politics and Policy 1, no. 1 (2009), www.bepress.com/cjpp/vol1/iss1/16.
64. Schrag, California, 18.
65. Steve Lopez, “Assembly Leader Sees Opportunity in the State’s Crisis,” Los Angeles Times, December 24, 2008. Kerkorian’s views were substantiated a month later in another grim report by the California Faculty Association, Thomas G. Mortenson’s “California at the Edge of a Cliff: The Failure to Invest in Public Higher Education is Crushing the Economy and Crippling Our Kids’ Future,” Report to the California Faculty Association, January 2009, www.postsecondary.org/archives/Reports/CAattheEdge1.pdf.
66. Mark Baldassare, California’s Post-partisan Future (San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California, 2008).
67. Joel Kotkin, “Sundown for California,” American Magazine, November 12, 2008, www.american.com/archive/2008/november-december-magazine/sundown-forcalifornia. See also Kotkin’s “Death of the Dream,” Newsweek, March 2, 2009, “Can California Make a Comeback?” Forbes, May 26, 2009, and “California after the Deluge,” lecture at Claremont McKenna College, Athenaeum series, January 29, 2008. For a similar view by a longtime California observer, see Harold Meyerson, “California: A Dream Diminished,” Washington Post, July 1, 2009. (See also “Traffic, Schools, Job Loss Cited as Reasons for Wanting to Leave L.A.,” Los Angeles Times, July 10, 2009—as well as numerous “comments” emphasizing a topic not explicitly addressed in the article: illegal immigration.)
68. Joel Kotkin, “Boomer Economy Stunting Growth in Northern California,” Forbes, November 16, 2009, www.forbes.com/2009/11/16/california-boomers-economy-opinion.htm.
69. Pat Morrison, “Making History” (interview with Kevin Starr), Los Angeles Times, July 11, 2009.
70. Conor Dougherty, “U.S. Nears Racial Milestone,” Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2010.
71. William Frey, “Three Americas: How Migration Is Changing America,” lecture at Claremont McKenna College, Athenaeum series, April 20, 2004; Also Frey, America’s Regional Demographics and Mapping the Growth.
72. Frey, “Race and Ethnicity.”
73. See Eric Bailey, “Cries for Reform of California Government Come from All Sides,” Los Angeles Times, July 14, 2009; Kevin O’Leary, “How California’s Fiscal Woes Began: A Crisis 30 Years in the Making,” Time, July 1, 2009; Joel Fox, “Proposition 13 Isn’t the Problem,” Los Angeles Times, July 9, 2009; John Vasconcellos, “How Did California Get into This Mess?” Los Angeles Times, July 10, 2009.
74. In early 2010, the movement for a constitutional convention suffered a temporary setback when Repair California could obtain only a fraction of the signatures needed to schedule a November ballot initiative. See “A Political Triple Whammy,” editorial, Los Angeles Times, February 16, 2010.
75. Myers, Immigrants and Boomers.
76. Schrag, California, 244.
77. The success of these populist “rebellions” relies on the fact that California’s frequent voters and “special election voters” tend to be disproportionately white, college-educated, middle-class homeowners over age fifty. See Mark Baldassare, Dean Bonner, Jennifer Paluch, and Sonja Petek, Californians and Their Government (San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California, May 2009).
78. Boomers and those over sixty-five are most opposed to illegal immigration—in contrast to younger Americans. See Damien Cave, “A Generation Gap over Immigration,” New York Times, May 17, 2010. This article is heavily based on the chapters by William Frey in Berube et al., State of Metropolitan America.
79. Ronald Brownstein, “The Gray and the Brown: The Generational Mismatch,” National Journal, July 24, 2010.
80. See Pew Research Center, “Limbaugh Holds onto His Niche—Conservative Men,” February 3, 2009, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1102/limbaugh-audience-conservative-men.
81. On the quickening drumbeat for Proposition 13 reform, see Bill Stahl, “Assessing Proposition 13,” Los Angeles Times, May 29, 2008; Michael Rothfield and Eric Bailey, “California’s Budget Fiasco Legacy Could Be Reform,” Los Angeles Times, February 20, 2009; Jerry Robert and Phil Trounsline, “Why California Can’t Be Governed,” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 2009; O’Leary, “How California’s Fiscal Woes Began,” Fox, “Proposition 13 Isn’t the Problem”; Vasconcellos, “How Did California Get into This Mess?”; Jon Chang, “Group Airs Proposals for California Government Overhaul,” Sacramento Bee, August 15, 2009.
82. Again, see Berton, “Whites in State.” From 2005 to 2007, California again became a net “exporter” of residents to other states. According to California demographer Joel Kotkin (“Death of the Dream”), the net outflow should reach 200,000 by 2010. Kotkin further admits that rising numbers might even be higher if the real estate recession hadn’t dashed the dreams of many near-retirees hoping to “cash out” at peak prices and then move to locales with lower costs of living. See also Mike Swift, “Boomers Leaving Golden State,” San Jose Mercury News, May 1, 2008; “California, Here We Come,” Washington Examiner, July 1, 2009; Michael R. Blood, “Go East, Young Man? Californians Look for the Exit,” Associated Press, January 13, 2009; Kotkin, “Sundown for California.”
83. Teresa Watanabe, “Naturalized Citizens Are Poised to Reshape California’s Political Landscape,” Los Angeles Times, May 11, 2009.
84. Allan Hoffenblum, “California’s Plummeting GOP Registration,” April 14, 2009, www.foxandhoundsdaily.com/blog/allan-hoffenblum/californias-plummeting-gop-registration.
1. Interview with the author, Washington, DC, February 13, 2007.
2. “New AARP Survey Shows Public Strongly Opposes Social Security Private Accounts,” October 24, 2006, http://www-alpha.aarp.org/aarp/articles/pulse_poll_social_security.html.
3. Greenberg, Quinlin, Rosner Research, 2005 Likely Voter Survey (Washington, DC: Greenberg, Quinlin, Rosner Research Inc., 2005).
4. David Court, Diana Farrell, and John E. Forsyth, “Serving Aging Baby Boomers,” McKinsey Quarterly, no. 4 (2007): 105.
5. Andrew Johnson, telephone interview with the author, January 26, 2007.
6. William Frey, “Race, Immigration and America’s Changing Electorate,” in Red, Blue and Purple America: The Future of Election Demographics, ed. Ruy Teixeira (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), 85.
7. In an analysis of voting data, Duane Alwin found that in the 1970s more than 70 percent felt the government would do what was right; by 1994 only 20 percent thought so. Though boomers were once somewhat more favorable toward government efforts to help minorities, they joined an overall trend in declining support for such programs: 45 percent of boomers supported affirmative action in the 1970s; by 1994, fewer than 25 percent did so. Politically independent boomers moved toward Republican Party identification—from 12 percent in the 1970s to 30 percent in 1994. Alwin concluded that although boomers might have remained liberal on a range of social issues, they might also accelerate broader trends toward conservatism. See Duane Alwin, “The Political Impact of the Baby Boom: Are There Persistent Generational Differences in Political Beliefs and Behavior?” Generations 22, no. 1 (1998): 46–54.
8. “John B. Williamson, “Political Activism and the Aging of the Baby Boom,” Generations 22, no. 1 (1998: 55–59). Susan A. MacManus in Young v. Old: Generational Combat in the 21st Century (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996) also acknowledged the growth and importance of old-age organizations and their location near national centers of power in Washington, DC.
McManus examined generational cohesion and differences across a range of attitudinal and behavioral variables. The results were more suggestive than definitive. In terms of generational attitudes toward taxing and spending policies, MacManus found that “all age groups express a preference for politics that are (or would be) most advantageous to them at that point in their lives. No one age-group holds exclusive rights to being labeled ‘greedy’ or ‘self-centered’ ” (244). She found that older voters do indeed register and vote more than the young. Older voters were more likely to contact public officials, but younger and middle-aged voters were more likely to be active in signing and circulating petitions. Older Americans were far more likely to contribute to PACs than the young. Older Americans tended to self-identify as Democrats, while higher proportions of the young were Republicans—though there were trends in both groups toward identification as independents.
MacManus predicts that generational political differences will widen in the future, especially on health care policies, criminal justice, and moral and social issues. (On the latter topic, the young tend to favor individual rights over societal protection, while older Americans reverse preferences.) Policy proposals may take on an “us-against-them” quality, and “younger cohorts will attempt to guard against tax structures that would place heavy burdens on them and to fight for a fair share of scarce resources for themselves and their children. Equity concerns will likely supplant efficiency issues in the 1990s and beyond” (245).
9. Carol Keegan et al., Boomers at Midlife: The AARP Life Stage Study (Washington, DC: AARP Knowledge Management, 2002), and Boomers at Midlife, 2004: The AARP Life Stage Study (Washington, DC: AARP Knowledge Management, 2004).
10. Merrill Lynch, The New Retirement Survey (New York: Merrill Lynch, 2005). In a related matter, boomers and other Americans are showing increasing support for government-assisted efforts to support universal health care access. A 2006 AARP poll of voters over age forty-two found that health care was a top political concern and that 78 percent favored minimum health insurance benefits for all Americans. AARP National Member Survey about 2006 Election Issues (Washington, DC: AARP Knowledge Management, June 2006).
11. Andrea Louise Campbell, How Policies Make Citizens (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003).
12. Ibid., 2.
13. Robert Binstock, “Older People and Voting Participation,” Gerontologist 40, no. 1 (2000): 18–39.
14. James H. Schulz and Robert H. Binstock, Aging Nation: The Economics and Politics of Growing Older in America (New York: Praeger, 2006).
15. Ibid., 207. Binstock has discerned the imprint of 1950s period effects upon one group of voters aged sixty-five to seventy-four, an “Eisenhower cohort.” They formed their early political allegiances during the Eisenhower presidency of the 1950s; and that cohort has since tended to disproportionately favor Republican candidates in presidential elections, more so than voters slightly older or slightly younger. Other than that, however, the Eisenhower cohort and other senior voters have not responded as a distinctive voting bloc even in the few elections when age policy issues were salient. See Robert Binstock, “Older Voters and the 2008 Election,” Gerontologist 49, no. 5 (2010): 697–701.
16. See Ralph H. Turner and Lewis M. Killian, Collective Behavior, 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1987); also Gary T. Marx and Douglas McAdam, Collective Behavior and Social Movements: Process and Structure (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1994).
17. Alan Wolfe, One Nation after All: What Americans Really Think about God, Country, Family, Racism, Welfare, Immigration, Homosexuality, Work, the Right, the Left, and Each Other (New York: Viking Press, 1998).
18. Peter Beinart, “The New Liberal Order,” Time, November 13, 2008.
19. Steve Vogel, “Age Discrimination Claims Jump, Worrying EEOC, Worker Advocates,” Washington Post, July 16, 2009. See also Jennifer Levitz and Philip Shishkin, “More Workers Cite Age Bias after Layoffs,” Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2009.
20. David G. Savage, “Supreme Court Makes Age-Bias Suits Harder to Win,” Los Angeles Times, June 19, 2009.
21. “Age Discrimination,” New York Times, July 7, 2009.
22. See a detailed analysis of the poll in Ronald Brownstein’s “Back to Basics,” National Journal, September 11, 2010. Original poll data at www.nationaljournal.com/njonline/ASNJHeartlandMonitorVITolplines.pdf.
23. Annie Gowen, “Lying Low after a Layoff,” Washington Post, August 12, 2009.
24. Anne Hull, “Squeaking By on $300,000,” Washington Post, August 16, 2009.
25. John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development, “The Anguish of Unemployment,” Rutgers University, September 2009, www.heldrich.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/content/Heldrich_Work_Trends_
Anguish_Unemployment.pdf.
26. “Agency Files Age Discrimination Suit against AT&T,” AARP Bulletin Today, August 20, 2009.
27. AARP, A Changing Political Landscape as One Generation Replaces Another (Washington, DC: AARP Knowledge Management, 2004), 14. The AARP report recognized that boomers’ politics had been conditioned by their generational history—one that differed markedly from that of their GI-generation parents. Not surprisingly, boomers identified the Vietnam War and the movements for civil rights and women’s rights as shaping their political world-view; older GIs saw World War II and the Great Depression as their formative experiences. Boomers’ heritage of protest and skepticism is reflected in findings that (1) more boomers than GIs were political independents (39 vs. 24 percent); (2) more boomers than GIs saw the need for a strong third party (56 vs. 37 percent); and (3) boomers were more likely to select candidates by stance on key issues, whereas GIs tended to emphasize candidates’ personal qualities.
28. Ibid., 13.
29. One of the most cited recent studies on the polarization of the occupational structure is David Autor, “The Polarization of Job Opportunities in the U.S. Labor Market,” Center for American Progress and the Hamilton Project, April 2010, www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/04/pdf/job_polarization.pdf.
30. The liberal/Democratic tilt of liberal arts college and university faculties is well known. More recently, the Pew Research Center took the political pulse of a sample of research scientists: only 6 percent were Republican; 55 percent were Democrats, and 32 percent were Independents. See Pew Research Center, “Public Praises Science; Scientists Fault Public, Media,” Washington, DC, July 9, 2009, http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/528.pdf.
31. Robert Putnam, “The Growing Class Gap,” Pittsburgh Post Gazette, April 28, 2008.
32. Christopher Lasch, The Revolt of the Elites (New York: Norton, 1995), 35.
33. Robert Kaplan, An Empire Wilderness: Travels into America’s Future (New York: Random House, 1998), 35.
34. Ibid., 73.
35. Ibid., 101.
36. David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest (New York: Random House, 1972).
37. Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), 98.
38. As Beinart (“New Liberal Order”) put it very well: “The biggest potential land mine in the Obama coalition isn’t the culture war or foreign policy; it’s nationalism. On a range of issues, from global warming to immigration to trade to torture, college-educated liberals want to integrate more deeply America’s economy, society and values with the rest of the world’s. They want to make it easier for people and goods to legally cross America’s borders, and they want global rules that govern how much America can pollute the atmosphere and how it conducts the war on terrorism. They believe that ceding some sovereignty is essential to making America prosperous, decent and safe. When it comes to free trade, immigration and multilateralism, though, down-scale Democrats are more skeptical. In the future, the old struggle between freedom and order may play itself out on a global scale, as liberal internationalists try to establish new rules for a more interconnected planet and working-class nationalists protest that foreign bureaucrats threaten America’s freedom.”
39. Peter Brown, “Like Affirmative Action, Arizona Law Splits Elites and the Public,” Wall Street Journal, May 20, 2010.
40. Peggy Noonan, “Try a Little Tenderness,” Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2008.
41. Stanley B. Greenberg and James Carville, “Solving the Paradox of 2004,” Washington, DC, Democracy Corps, November 9, 2004.
42. See, for example, Thomas Frank, What’s the Matter with Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America (New York: Henry Holt, 2004).
43. Alan Abramowitz and Ruy Teixeira, “The Decline of the White Working Class and the Rise of a Mass Upper Middle Class,” in Teixeira, Red, Blue and Purple America.
44. Ibid. This finding is indicative of what Abramowitz and Teixeira describe as tensions within a “mass upper middle class” between managers, who still lean Republican, and highly educated professionals, who are trending Democratic.
45. See David Brady, Benjamin Sosnaud, and Steven M. Frenk, “The Shifting and Diverging White Working Class in the U.S. Presidential Elections, 1972–2004,” Social Science Research 38, no. 1 (2009): 118–33.
46. See Lydia Saad, “White Gender Gap in Obama Approval Widens with Education,” Gallup Polls, May 21, 2010, www.gallup.com/poll/128261/white-gender-gap-obama-approval-widens-education.aspx; Ronald Brownstein, “Two Suburbs, Two Views of Obama,” National Journal, July 10, 2010; Joel Kotkin, “The Democrats’ Middle Class Problem,” Politico, July 14, 2010, www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/39675.html.
47. Andrew Sullivan, “Good-Bye to All That,” Atlantic Monthly, December 2007, 40–54.
48. Caroline Kennedy, “A President Like My Father,” op-ed, New York Times, January 27, 2008.
49. Susan Eisenhower, “Why I’m Backing Obama,” op-ed, Washington Post, February 2, 2008.
50. Matt Bai, “Back-Room Choices,” New York Times Magazine, February 3, 2008.
51. Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais, “The Boomers Had Their Day, Make Way for the Millennials,” Washington Post, February 3, 2008.
52. Roger Cohen, “Obama’s Youth-Driven Movement,” New York Times, January 28, 2008.
53. Bill Clinton, interview, Charlie Rose Show, December 14, 2007, www.charlierose.com/view/interview/8836#frame_top.
54. Jay Cost, “Review of Obama’s Voting Coalition, Pts I-IV,” May 27, 2008, www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/2008/05/a_review_of_obamas_voting
_coalition_1.html.
55. Among white voters age eighteen to twenty-nine, the Clinton-Obama split was 53 to 47 percent; among voters thirty to forty-four, Clinton increased the gap 61 to 34 percent; among those forty-five to sixty (the boomer demographic), Clinton’s lead widened still further, 68 to 31 percent; and for those voters over age sixty, Clinton had a decisive margin over Obama of 75 to 23 percent. Ibid.
A Brookings Institution demographer offered a somewhat parallel analysis, noting that Clinton had the advantage in the “old white belt” of “slow growing battlegrounds” including much of the Great Lakes and Midwest, while Obama had the advantage in the more diverse fast-growing battlegrounds such as Florida and many of the mountain states, such as Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico. See Tom Edsall, “Is Obama or Clinton the Better General Election Candidate?” www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/is_obama_or_clinton_the-better.html, March 12, 2008.
56. CNN Exit Poll, November 5, 2008, www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1.
57. Ibid.
58. Ronald Brownstein, “Obama and the Swells,” National Journal, April 25, 2009.
59. Peter Wallstein, “Democrats Face Threat from Their Own Base,” Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2010. See also Brownstein, “Two Suburbs,” and Ronald Brownstein, “Obama’s Electoral Headwinds,” National Journal, September 11, 2010.
60. See Thomas Edsall, “The Obama Coalition,” Atlantic Monthly, April, 2010.
61. Katherine Q. Seelye, “In Clinton vs. Obama, Age Is One of the Greatest Predictors,” New York Times, April 22, 2008.
62. Chuck Todd and Sledon Gawiser, How Obama Won (New York: Vintage Books, 2009), 31.
63. Patrick Fisher, “The Age Gap in the 2008 Presidential Election,” Society 47 (December 2009): 295–300.
64. Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais, Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008), 206.
65. Ibid., 210.
66. Thomas Friedman, “More (Steve) Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs,” New York Times, January 23, 2010. See also James Oliphant and Kathleen Hennessey, “Obama’s Electoral Coalition Is Crumbling,” Los Angeles Times, September 11, 2010.
67. Cited in Peter Nicholas and Christi Parsons, “Obama’s Midterm Task: Reenergize Voters,” Los Angeles Times, July 13, 2010.
68. Matt Bai, “Midterms Are a Test for the Real Ground Game,” New York Times, October 13, 2010.
69. Karen Tumulty, “Democrats Spend Big to Lure Obama’s Minority and Young Voters Back to the Polls,” Washington Post, June 20, 2010.
70. See Kate Zernike, Boiling Mad: Inside Tea Party America (New York: Times Books, 2010).
71. Kate Zernike and Megan Thee-Brenan, “Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthier and More Educated,” New York Times, April 14, 2010.
72. Pew Research Center, “The People and Their Government: Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor,” April 18, 2010, http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/606.pdf, 90–91.
73. “Polling the Tea Party,” New York Times, April 14, 2010. Interactive feature: www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/04/14/us/politics/20100414-tea-party-poll-graphic.html?ref=politics#tab=3.
74. Zernike and Thee-Brenan, “Poll Finds Tea Party.” A subsequent Bloomberg national poll of Tea Party supporters found that 53 percent would consider raising the eligibility age for Medicare and 58 percent would consider similar action on Social Security—compared to 47 percent and 49 percent, respectively, of the general public. See www.bloomberg.com/news/2010–10–14/tea-party-s-economic-gloom-fuels-republican-election-momentum-poll-says.html.
The chapter epigraph is taken from Thomas J. Friedman, “Root Canal Politics,” New York Times, May 8, 2010.
1. “Targeting Your 401(k),” Wall Street Journal, November 14, 2008.
2. Robert Samuelson, “A Darker Future for Us,” Newsweek, November 10, 2008.
3. David M. Walker, “Call This a Crisis? Just Wait!” Fortune/CNN Money.com, October 30, 2008, and Comeback America: Turning the Country Around and Restoring Fiscal Responsibility (New York: Random House, 2009).
4. See Steven Erlanger, “Crisis Imperils Liberal Benefits Long Expected by Europeans,” New York Times, May 22, 2010; also Mary Williams Walsh and Amy Schoenfeld, “Padded Pensions Add to New York Fiscal Woes,” New York Times, May 20, 2010 (this includes assessments from a variety of pension experts in an accompanying section entitled “Room for Debate”); Mortimer Zuckerman, “The Bankrupting of America,” Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2010; Alan Blinder, “Return of the Bond Market Vigilantes,” Wall Street Journal, May 20, 2010.
5. S. Kathi Brown, A Year-End Look at the Economic Slowdown’s Impact on Middle-Aged and Older Americans (Washington, DC: AARP Knowledge Management, January 2009).
6. Greg Anrig and Millie Parekh, “The Impact of Housing and Investment Market Declines on the Wealth of Baby Boomers,” Issue Brief, Century Foundation, August 2, 2010, http://tcf.org/publications/2010/7/the-impact-of-housing-and-investment-market-declines-on-the-wealth-of-baby-boomers/pdf.
7. Alicia H. Munnell and Dan Muldoon, Are Retirement Savings Too Exposed to Market Risk? Issue in Brief, no. 8–16 (Boston: Boston College Center for Retirement Research, October 2008).
8. Alicia H. Munnell, Anthony Webb, and Francesca Golub-Sass, The National Retirement Risk Index: After the Crash, Issue in Brief, no. 9–22 (Boston: Boston College Center for Retirement Research, October 2009), 7.
9. Obviously, the composition of the job tenure categories changed for people who remained with the same employer—or retired after more than thirty years on the job.
10. Jack VanDerhei, Sarah Holden, and Luis Alonso, “401(k) Plan Asset Allocation, Account Balances, and Loan Activity in 2008,” Employee Benefit Research Institute Issue Brief, no. 335 (October 2009), 11–12.
11. “Change in Average Account Balances (by Age and Tenure) from January 1, 2008–December 31, 2009 among 401(k) Participants with Account Balances as of Dec. 31, 2007,” Employee Benefits Research Institute, www.ebri.org/pdf/December%2031,%202009%20update%20full%20universe.pdf.
12. Jack VanDerhei and Craig Copeland, “The EBRI Retirement Readiness Rating; Retirement Income Preparation and Future Prospects,” Employee Benefit Research Institute Issue Brief, no. 344 (July 2010). (The report uses the terms Early Boomers and Late Boomers and also defines Early Boomers as those born between 1948 and 1964, rather than the traditional birth range of 1946 to 1964.)
13. Alicia Munnell and Jean-Pierre Aubry, Returns on 401(k) Assets by Cohort, Issue in Brief, no. 10–6 (Boston: Boston College Center for Retirement Research, March 2010).
14. Peter Y. Hong, “Southern California Home Prices Rise Slightly in May,” Los Angeles Times, June 18, 2009.
15. “Deutsche Bank Predicts 40% Drop in New York Home Prices,” Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2009.
16. David Rosnick and Dean Baker, “The Wealth of the Baby Boom Cohorts after the Collapse of the Housing Bubble,” Report, Center for Economic and Policy Research, Washington, DC, February 2009, www.cepr.net/documents/publications/baby-boomer-wealth-2009–02.pdf. (An Urban Institute study suggests that declining home values may be more of a psychological than an economic jolt; only about 6 percent of those aged fifty to sixty-five plan to use home equity to finance daily living expenses in retirement. Richard W. Johnson, Mauricio Soto, and Shela R. Zedlewski, “How Is the Economic Turmoil Affecting Older Americans?” Fact Sheet, Urban Institute, Washington, DC, October 2008, www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411765_economic_turmoil.pdf.)
17. Tom Lauricella, “Retiring? Pay Off Your Mortgage,” Wall Street Journal, August 6, 2009.
18. “Net Worth of Families Down Sharply,” New York Times, March 12, 2009.
19. Federal Reserve Flow of Funds Accounts, March 11, 2010, www.federalreserve.gov/RELEASES/z1/20100311/.
20. “Net Worth of Families Down Sharply.”
21. Jeffry M. Jones, “Boomers’ Spending Like Other Generations’, Down Sharply,” Gallup Poll, August 27, 2009, www.gallup.com/poll/122546/boomers-spending-generations-down-sharply.aspx.
22. Barbara Butrica, Karen E. Smith, and Eric Toder, How Will the Stock Market Collapse Affect Retirement Incomes? Older Americans’ Economic Security, no. 20 (Washington, DC: Urban Institute, June 2009).
23. Alan L. Gustman, Thomas L. Steinmeir, and Nahid Tabatabai, “What the Stock Market Decline Means for the Financial Security and Retirement Choices of the Near Retirement Population,” Working Paper No. 15235, National Bureau of Economic Research, Washington, DC, October 2009, www.nber.org/papers/w15435.
24. See Richard Wolf, “Social Security Collectors Up 19%,” USA Today, October 1, 2009.
25. Tony Pugh, “Social Security Surplus Hit by Joblessness, Early Retirement,” Miami Herald, February 11, 2010, www.miamiherald.com/news/politics/AP/story/1475405.html.
26. Sandra Block, “Boomer Quandary,” USA Today, March 11, 2008.
27. Kelly Evans and Sarah E. Needleman, “For Older Workers, a Reluctant Retirement,” Wall Street Journal, December 8, 2009. See also AARP, “Last Decade Spelled Disaster for Older Workers,” press release, March 3, 2010, www.aarp.org/about-aarp/press-center/info-03-2010/last_decade_spelleddiasterforolderworkers.html.
28. Dennis Cauchon, “Employed See Tough Times, Too,” USA Today, June 13, 2009.
29. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Monthly Labor Report, July 1, 2009; Sara E. Rix, “The Employment Situation, June, 2010: A Mixed Picture for Older Workers.” Fact Sheet 195, AARP Public Policy Institute, July 2010, www.aarp.org/work/job-hunting/info-07–2010/fs195-economic.html. See also Emily Glazer, “Out of Work, Out of Options, and Over the Hill,” Wall Street Journal, October 24, 2010. For a one-year follow-up of a small, nonscientific sample of unemployed boomers, see Michael Winerip, “Boomers in a Post-boom Economy,” New York Times, March 1, 2009, and Michael Winerip, “Time, It Turns Out, Isn’t on Their Side,” New York Times, March 11, 2010.
30. “Poll: Less Job Security Is the ‘New Normal,’ ” ABC News, June 15, 2009, http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/Story?id=7802574&page=3.
31. Courtney Coile and Philip B. Levine, “The Market Crash and Mass Layoffs: How the Current Economic Crisis May Affect Retirement,” Working Paper No. 15395, National Bureau of Economic Research, Washington, DC, October 2009, www.nber.org/papers/w15395.
32. Ruth Helman, Mathew Greenwald and Associates, Craig Copeland, and Jack VanDerhei, “The 2010 Retirement Confidence Survey: Confidence Stabilizing but Preparations Continue to Erode,” Employee Benefit Research Institute Issue Brief, no. 340 (March 2010).
33. Towers Watson, “Older Worker Confidence in Retirement Security Drops Sharply, Watson Wyatt Survey Finds,” press release, June 2, 2009, www.watsonwyatt.com/render.asp?catid=1&id=21316.
34. Steve French, “Boomer Opportunities: Trends among the Largest Demographic In America,” paper presented at the National Conference on Aging/American Society on Aging Joint Annual Conference, Chicago, March 16, 2010.
35. Matt Ackerman, “Retirement Assets Surged 18% to $9.3 Trillion,” Employee Benefit News, April 15, 2010.
36. Sarah N. Lynch, “Survey Says Household Stick with 401(k)s,” Wall Street Journal, January 2, 2010.
37. Brennan and Stevens discussed these reports on PBS Nightly Business Report, January 8, 2010. See John Ameriks, Anna Madamba, and Stephen P. Utkus, The Aftermath: Investor Attitudes in the Wake of the 2008–2009 Market Decline (Valley Forge, PA: Vanguard Center for Retirement Research, October 2009); Sarah Holden, John Sabelhaus, and Brian Reid, Enduring Confidence in the 401(k) System: Investor Attitudes and Actions (Washington, DC: Investment Company Institute, January 2010).
38. Theo Francis, “Retiree Annuities May Be Promoted by Obama Aides,” Businessweek, January 8, 2010.
39. E. S. Browning, “Small Investors Flee Stocks, Changing Market Dynamics,” Wall Street Journal, July 12, 2010. See also Graham Bowley, “In Striking Shift, Small Investors Flee Stock Market,” New York Times, August 21, 2010.
40. Pew Research Center, “How the Great Recession Has Changed Life in America,” report, Washington, DC, June 30, 2010, http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/759/how-the-great-recession-has-changed-life-in-america?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+pewsocialtrends/all+(pewsocialtrends.org+|+All).
41. Robert J. Samuelson, “The Great Recession’s Stranglehold,” Washington Post, July 12, 2010.
42. AARP, Baby Boomers Envision Their Retirement (Washington, DC: AARP, February 1999), and Baby Boomers Envision Retirement II (Washington, DC: AARP, May 2004); Jack VanDerhei, Sarah Holden, Craig Copeland, and Luis Alonso, “401(k) Plan Asset Allocation, Account Balances, and Loan Activity in 2006,” Employee Benefit Research Institute Issue Brief, no. 308 (August 2007).
43. Alicia H. Munnell, Anthony Webb, and Luke Delorme, A New National Retirement Risk Index, Issue in Brief, no. 48 (Boston: Boston College Center for Retirement Research, June 2006); Diana Farrell and Ezra Greenberg, “Twilight of the Boomers,” June 23, 2008, www.economy.com/dismal/article_free.asp?cid=106690&tid=5AB5D93B-6C42–4355–8264–60410C40EF8E. See also Alicia Munnell, Mauricio Soto, Anthony Webb, Francesca Golub-Sass, and Dan Muldoon, Health Care Costs Drive Up the National Retirement Risk Index, Issue in Brief, no. 8–3 (Boston: Boston College Retirement Research, 2008); Diana Farrell, Eric Beinhocker, Ezra Greenberg, Suruchi Shukla, Jonathan Ablett, and Geoffrey Green, Talkin’ ’Bout My Generation: The Economic Impact of Aging US Baby Boomers (San Francisco: McKinsey Global Institute, June 2008).
44. Pew Research Center, “Recession Turns a Graying Office Grayer: America’s Changing Workforce,” report, September 3, 2009, http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/742/americas-changing-work-force#prc-jump.
45. John M. Gibbons, “I Can’t Get No . . . Job Satisfaction, That Is: America’s Unhappy Workers,” Report #1459–09RR, Conference Board, New York, January 2010, www.conference-board.org/publications/publicationdetail.cfm?publicationid=1727.
46. Helman et al., “2010 Retirement Confidence Survey.”
47. Ibid.
48. Shalanda Gordon, Carol Keegan, and Linda Fisher, “Boomers Turning 60,” report, Knowledge Management Group, AARP, 2006, http://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/general/boomers60.pdf.
49. Joanna Rotenberg, “The Retirement Challenge: Expectations vs. Reality,” paper on McKinsey & Company’s 2006 Consumer Retirement Survey, presented at the Employee Benefit Research Institute/AARP Pension Conference, May 15, 2006.
50. Employee Benefit Research Institute, Workers’ Retirement Date: Planned vs. Actual, Fast Facts, no. 129, July 15, 2009. See also Ruth Helman, Mathew Greenwald and Associates, Jack VanDerhei, and Craig Copeland, “The Retirement System in Transition: The 2007 Retirement Confidence Survey,” Employee Benefit Research Institute Issue Brief, no. 304 (April 2007).
51. Quote from David Wessel, “Older Staffers Get Uneasy Embrace,” Wall Street Journal, May 15, 2008; see also Alicia Munnell and Steven Sass, Working Longer ( Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2008).
52. Steve Vogel, “Age Discrimination Claims Jump, Worrying EEOC, Worker Advocates,” Washington Post, July 16, 2009.
53. Julian Mincer, “Getting Personal: Boomers Delay Retirement as Savings Dwindle,” Wall Street Journal, June 23, 2009; see also Diane Stafford, “Recession Forces More Older Workers to Put Off Retiring,” Kansas City Star, July 10, 2009.
54. Winerip, “Boomers.”
55. Winerip, “Time, It Turns Out.”
56. Alicia Munnell, “Retirement Dreams Face New Reality,” interview by Kay Ryssdal, Marketplace, National Public Radio, May 15, 2009. High Wire author Peter Gosselin also doubted boomers’ abilities to recoup lost years of retirement savings. Working a few more years into one’s sixties is simply too little and too late, Gosselin argued. “It is unlikely that many workers can stay on the job long enough to do more than modestly augment their 401(k)s and other savings arrangements; the mismatch is simply too great between what can be set aside in a few years and how much is needed to support decades of retirement. Moreover, a substantial number of workers will encounter medical or other problems that make continued, full-time work impossible. And in case you hadn’t noticed, most employers are not clamoring for older, more experienced employees; they’re pushing for younger, cheaper ones.” Peter Gosselin, High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 28.
57. Edward Yardeni, quoted in Tom Petrumo, “The Case for a New National Frugality,” Los Angeles Times, August 9, 2008, C1.
58. Ernst and Young issued an equally pessimistic assessment in July 2008—just before the major fall stock market meltdowns. “Many of the 77 million baby boomers retiring over the next few years will face unprecedented challenges in maintaining their standard of living in retirement. Middle-income Americans are most at risk as long life spans, the decline of guaranteed sources of retirement income and the fact that nearly half of older Americans lack employer-based retirement plans contribute to increased retirement risks.” Ernst and Young LLP, Retirement Vulnerability of New Retirees: The Likelihood of Outliving Their Assets (New York: Ernst and Young, July 2008). One year later, a Businessweek cover story acknowledged that many families were frustrated and had a sense of futility about ever trying to achieve recommended levels of retirement savings. Peter Coy, “Can You Afford to Retire?” Businessweek, July 2, 2009.
59. The Metlife Report on Early Boomers (Westport, CT: Metlife Mature Market Institute/Peter Francese, LLC, September 2010).
60. See Barry Bluestone and Mark Melnick, After the Recovery: Help Needed (San Francisco: Civic Ventures, 2010).
61. Daniel Pink, Free Agent Nation (New York: Warner Books, 2001).
62. Steven Greenhouse, “Starting Over at 55,” New York Times, March 3, 2010.
63. Ashlea Ebeling, “Boomers Move to Self-Employment,” Forbes, July 2, 2009. See also Dane Stangler, The Coming Entrepreneurship Boom (Kansas City: Kauffman Foundation. June 2009).
64. Two other upbeat journalistic articles spurred by the Kauffman reports on boomers as potential entrepreneurs are Hanah Cho, “Boomers Go Venturing,” Baltimore Sun, July 29, 2009, and Elizabeth Razzi, “The Worker’s Open Road,” Washington Post, May 31, 2009.
65. Jeff Goldsmith, The Long Baby Boom: An Optimistic Vision for a Graying Generation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 2008).
66. “In southern California, nearly 23 percent of telecommuters are in their 50s, compared with only 16.7 percent overall and less than 16 percent of non-teleworkers.” Ibid., 85.
67. Laura Vanderkam, “The Promise and Peril of the Freelance Economy,” City Journal 19, no. 1 (2009), www.city-journal.org/2009/19_1_self-employment.html.
68. See Simona Covel, “Sick and Getting Sicker,” Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2009.
69. Mark Penn, “Boss Nation,” Wall Street Journal, August 3, 2009.
70. Richard C. Morais, “The IRA Job Machine,” Forbes, April 8, 2009.
71. Stephane Fitch, “Gilt-Edged Pensions,” Forbes, February 16, 2009.
72. Dan Walters, “Pension Fund Setbacks Will Hit Taxpayers Hard,” Sacramento Bee, January 26, 2009. Indeed, new organizations such as California Pension Reform (www.Californiapensionreform.com) unsuccessfully attempted to gather signatures to curtail future public-sector benefits, while posting on its Web site the members of the “$100k Club”—retired public pensioners who were earning more than $100,000. (The trend is catching on with newspapers around the nation.) See Craig Karmin, “Group Shines Light on Hefty Government Pensions,” Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2009.
73. John Jannarone, “A Pension Deficit Disorder,” Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2009.
74. Joe Mont, “Pension Deficits Hit Historic High: $506 Billion,” TheStreet.com, September 1, 2010, www.thestreet.com/story/10850461/pension-deficits-hit-historic-high-506-billion.html.
75. See Alicia H. Munnell and Mauricio Soto, “Why Are Companies Freezing Their Pensions?” paper presented at the Ninth Annual Joint Conference of the Retirement Research Consortium, Washington, DC, August 9–10, 2009.
76. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, “Maximum Monthly Guarantee Tables,” www.pbgc.gov/ (accessed October 15, 2010).
77. Walt Bogdanich, “A Disability Epidemic among a Railroad’s Retirees,” New York Times, September 21, 2008.
78. Dan Walters, “Pension Hike of a Decade Ago Backfires,” Sacramento Bee, June 22, 2009.
79. Marc Lifsher, “States Grappling with Pension Fund Deficits,” Los Angeles Times, February 18, 2010.
80. Michael Barbaro, “Mayor Warns on Pension Costs but Gave Pay Deals,” New York Times, June 22, 2009.
81. See Roger Lowenstein, “The Next Crisis: Public Pension Funds,” New York Times Magazine, June 27, 2010.
82. State and Local Government Retiree Benefits: Current Status of Benefit Structures, Protections and Fiscal Outlook for Funding Future Costs, GAO-07–1156 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, September 2007); State and Local Government Retiree Benefits: Current Funded Status of Pension and Health Benefits, GAO-08–223 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, January 2008).
83. Pew Center on the States, The Trillion Dollar Gap: Underfunded State Retirement Systems and the Roads to Reform, (Washington, DC: Pew Charitable Trusts, February 2010).
84. Alicia H. Munnell, Jean-Pierre Aubry, and Laura Quinby, The Funding of State and Local Pensions: 2009–2013, State and Local Pension Plans, no. 10 (Boston: Boston College Center for Retirement Research, April 2010), 7.
85. See Richard C. Kearney, Robert L. Clark, Jerrell D. Coggburn, Dennis M. Daley, and Christina Robinson, At a Crossroads: The Financing and Future of Health Benefits for State and Local Government Retirees (Washington, DC: Center for State and Local Government Excellence, July 2009).
86. Ibid. This report echoed the 2007 Government Accounting Office evaluation warning that states face soaring liabilities for such expenses and cannot continue pay-as-you-go funding from general revenues. See Dennis M. Daley and Jerrell D. Coggburn, Retiree Health Care in the American States (Washington, DC: Center for State and Local Government Excellence, December 2008); U.S. General Accounting Office, State and Local Government Retiree Benefits, GAO-07–1156 (Washington, DC: U.S. General Accounting Office, September 2007).
87. Steve Lopez, “Deals So Sweet They’ll Kill Us,” Los Angeles Times, January 22, 2006.
88. Evan Halper, “Public Sector Reels at Retiree Healthcare Tab,” Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2007.
89. See Walsh and Schoenfeld, “Padded Pensions”; Zuckerman, “Bankrupting of America.” A Time magazine cover story, David von Drehle’s “The Broken States of America” (July 28, 2010), highlighted the pension funding crisis, and the reporter Mary Williams Walsh again headlined the problem with “In Budget Crisis, States Take Aim at Pension Costs,” New York Times, June 10, 2010.
90. See “A Gold-Plated Burden: Hard-Pressed American States Face a Crushing Pensions Bill,” Economist, October 14, 2010; James A. Bacon Jr., “Will Ballooning State Budgets Be the Next Systemic Financial Crisis?” Examiner.com, September 30, 2010. See also R. Eden Martin, “Unfunded Public Pensions—the Next Quagmire,” Wall Street Journal, August 19, 2010.
91. Evan Halper and Marc Lifsher, “Government Pensions in the Cross-hairs,” Los Angeles Times, April 23, 2010. (That article capped many others in the paper, including an editorial conceding that pension reform had been long overdue. See, for example, “California’s Pension Powder Keg,” Los Angeles Times, August 13, 2009.) See also Jim Christie, “California Pensions Next State Financial Crisis,” Reuters, July 29, 2009, www.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUSTRE56S6UB20090729.
92. Matthew Greenwald, interview with the author, September 13, 2007.
93. For a brief, preliminary overview of boomer stereotyping, see H. R. Moody, review of Aging America and the Boomer Wars, by Frank J. Whittington, Gerontologist 48, no. 6 (2008): 839–44.
94. On the identification of the Clintons, especially Bill Clinton, with boomers, see Howard Fineman, “The Last Hurrah,” Newsweek, January 23, 2006, 52–61.
95. Howard Fineman, “Boomers: Which Way Will Their Politics Go?” Newsweek, August 24, 2007.
96. Peter Feld, “Mark Penn’s Missed Microtrends,” April 7, 2008, www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2008/04/07/mr-microtrends-undone-by-microtrends.
97. Frank Rich, “One Historic Night, Two Americas,” New York Times, June 8, 2008.
98. William Kristol, “Not-So-Great Generation,” Weekly Standard, November 26, 2007.
99. Michael Barone, “Talkin’ ’Bout My Generation: Leaving Boomer Conflicts Behind,” National Review Online, July 23, 2007, http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YWJiNTExZmNmN2U2ZjZmZGU3YTQ1NDBhZjI3NWYxODA.
100. Victor Davis Hansen, “A Generational Bust,” National Review Online, May 29, 2008, http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=NmMwMzM2MDI3MWYwZjI1ODdmMjM1MTE0NjJmNDg4ZDc=.
101. Cathleen Decker, “Whitman Tries to Invoke the ’60s,” Los Angeles Times, June 27, 2010, A35.
102. Cathalena E. Burch, “Black: Baby Boomers Screwed Up,” Arizona Daily Star, December 31, 2009.
103. Robert J. Samuelson, “Entitled Selfishness: Boomer Generation Is in a State of Denial,” Washington Post, January 10, 2007.
104. Joe Queenan, Balsamic Dreams: A Short but Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation (New York: Picador USA, 2002).
105. Christopher Buckley, Boomsday (New York: Twelve/Hachette Book Group, 2007).
106. Meghan Daum, “Why Don’t You All Just F-Fade Away?” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 2008.
107. Penelope Trunk, “Boomer Kaboomer: What Obama Means for the Workplace,” February 7, 2008, www.readthehook.com/code/printStory.aspx?StoryURL=/stories/2008/02/07/BRAZEN-0706-ObamadissesBoomers-A.rtf.aspx.
108. Joel Achenbach, “The Rise of the Alpha Geezer,” Washington Post, September 9, 2007.
109. See Douglas Belkin, “Boomers to This Year’s Grads: We Are Really, Really Sorry,” Wall Street Journal, June 10, 2009; Mitch Daniels, commencement address at Butler University, May 9, 2009, www.in.gov/portal/news_events/38894.htm; Sen. Michael Bennet, commencement address to Colorado College class of 2009, www.coloradocollege.edu/Commencement/Michael-Bennet.asp.
110. Nicholas D. Kristof, “Geezers Doing Good,” New York Times, July 20, 2008.
111. Michael Kinsley, “It’s the Least We Can Do,” Atlantic Monthly, October 2010. See also the reflections of British baby boomer Will Hutton, who wonders if his generation was “lucky” and states that children now face a “future of massive debt and uncertainty.” Will Hutton, “The Baby Boomers and the Price of Personal Freedom,” Guardian, August 22, 2010.
112. Stephen Moore, “This Boomer Isn’t Going to Apologize,” Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2009.
113. John Zogby, “The Baby Boomers’ Legacy,” Forbes, July 23, 2009.
114. See Perry Bacon Jr. and Shailagh Murry, “Opponents Paint Obama as an Elitist,” Washington Post, April 12, 2008.
115. Frank Rich, “She Broke the G.O.P. and Now She Owns It,” New York Times, July 12, 2009.
116. Maureen Dowd, “Sarah’s Ghoulish Carousel,” New York Times, August 16, 2009.
117. Richard Cohen, “Palin’s Red Menace,” Washington Post, August 18, 2009.
118. Phillip Longman, “After the Boom,” Atlantic Monthly, January 2008.
119. Ibid.
120. Harris Interactive Survey, “Widely Held Attitudes to Different Generations,” press release, August 20, 2008, www.harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=1328.
121. Paul Taylor and Richard Morin, “Forty Years after Woodstock, a Gentler Generation Gap,” Social and Democratic Trends Report, Pew Research Center, August 12, 2009, http://pewsocialtrends.org/assets/pdf/after-woodstock-gentler-generation-gap.pdf.
122. Rich Morin, “Black-White Conflict Isn’t Society’s Largest: The Public Assesses Social Divisions,” Social and Democratic Trends Report, Pew Research Center, September 24, 2009, http://pewsocialtrends.org/pubs/744/social-divisions-black-white-conflict-not-society-largest-.
The chapter’s epigraph is from Dale Van Atta, “This Isn’t the Old AARP,” Los Angeles Times, July 4, 2006.
1. Center for Responsive Politics, “Lobbying Top Spenders,” 2003–8, www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?showYear+a&indexType+s.
2. Simpson continued his war against AARP after retiring from the Senate in 2000. “AARP could be such a force for good . . . but they’re not. They’re selfish, greedy. They don’t care about their grandchildren a whit. . . . Now I have the freedom to just beat the brains out of the AARP and I do that all over America.” Alan Simpson, “Let ’er Rip! Reflections of a Rocky Mountain Senator,” transcript and Webcast, Conversations with History, Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1997, http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/conversations/Simpson/.
3. See Charles R. Morris, The AARP: America’s Most Powerful Lobby and the Clash of Generations (New York: Times Books, 1996), and Dale Van Atta, Trust Betrayed: Inside the AARP (Washington, DC: Regnery, 1998).
4. Rich Tau, telephone interview with the author, February 21, 2007.
5. AARP Public Policy Institute, “2009 Annual Report: Together Creating Opportunities,” http://assets.aarp.org/www.aarp.org/cs/misc/aarp_annual_report_2009.pdf, 10.
6. See Charles R. Morris, The AARP (New York: Times Books, 1996), 105–13.
7. Rich Tau, telephone interview with the author, February 21, 2007.
8. “Jabba the AARP,” Wall Street Journal, May 17, 1999, A26.
9. “AARP: Making Money, Losing Trust,” Bloomberg News Service, January 15, 2009.
10. Ibid.
11. My analysis of the changes wrought by Novelli at AARP is based upon dozens of interviews and reinterviews with staff and researchers at various levels of the organization, including two interviews with Novelli (on December 12, 2000, and December 5, 2007). Although there are no current books or academic journal articles on AARP’s Novelli-led transformation, there is one major unpublished professional paper and several first-rate journalistic sources. Dartmouth’s Tuck Business School Professor Paul A. Argenti authored an in-house account entitled “AARP: At the Crossroads of Change,” unpublished manuscript, AARP and Tuck Business School, 2005. Two key articles in National Journal are Bara Vaida, “AARP’s Big Bet,” National Journal, March 13, 2004, and Julie Kosterlitz, “The World According to AARP,” National Journal, March 10, 2007, 28–35. See also Jane Eisinger Rooney, “Brand New Day,” Association Management 55, no. 2 (2003): 46–48, 50–51.
12. See Bill Novelli, 50+: Igniting a Revolution to Reinvent America (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2006).
13. See “Our Leadership,” under “About AARP,” www.aarp.org/about-aarp/.
14. Bill Novelli, “Moving AARP Ahead: From Good to Great,” July 25, 2005, www.aarp.org.
15. Bill Novelli, telephone interview with the author, July 1, 2010.
16. Vaida, “AARP’s Big Bet.”
17. Bill Novelli, interview with the author, December 5, 2007, Washington, DC.
18. See AARP, “Mission,” under “About AARP,” 2001, www.aarp.org/about-aarp; AARP, Reimagining America: How American Can Grow Older and Prosper (Washington, DC: AARP Publications, 2005).
19. See Argenti, “AARP.”
20. See “Consolidated Financial Statements” section of AARP, 2009 Annual Report (Washington, DC: AARP, 2010). Conservative critics grumble that in 2008 AARP received about ninety million dollars in government funds through its affiliated, charitable AARP Foundation to administer free tax consulting and job training for senior citizens. The 2008 donor list mentions “institutional support” from the Internal Revenue Service, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Labor. See Chelsea Schilling, “Dark Secrets of AARP Finally Exposed to Light,” World Net Daily, November 10, 2009, www.wnd.com/?pageId=115617.
21. Andrew Adam Newman, “A Magazine Now Tailored to the Not Necessarily Retired,” New York Times, August 23, 2010; also Richard Siklos, “At Some Publishers, Nonbusiness Is Going Strong,” New York Times, August 20, 2006; Marc Fisher, “AARP Tunes In to Radio’s Discarded Audience,” Washington Post, July 8, 2007; Andrew Billups, “AARP Magazine Targets ‘New 50,’{hrs}” Washington Times, October 29, 2007; Elaine S. Povich, “AARP the Magazine Online Feature Wins 2009 National Magazine Award,” AARP Bulletin Today, May 1, 2009.
22. See AARP, “AARP Global Network Expands International Reach,” press release, February 28, 2008, http://share-ws2-md.aarp.org/aarp/presscenter/pressrelease/articles/aarp_global_network_expands
_international_reach.html.
23. AARP, “Audience Demographics,” in “Life at 50+: Sponsor and Exhibitor Prospectus,” Washington, DC, 2008, 5. Also “Who We Are: Profile of AARP’s 40 Million Members,” AARP Bulletin, June 2009.
24. “AARP Member Demographics Study,” 2008, internal document.
25. Barbara T. Dreyfuss, “The Seduction,” American Prospect, June 6, 2007.
26. AARP’s backing of the Medicare Modernization Act attracted a good deal of notice and commentary. See Laurie McGinley, “AARP Chief under Fire on the Medicare Bill,” Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2003; Robert Pear and David E. Rosenbaum, “AARP Backs Republican Plan for Medicare Drug Benefits,” New York Times, November 17, 2003; David S. Broder and Amy Goldstein, “AARP Decision Followed a Long GOP Courtship,” Washington Post, November 20, 2003; David S. Broder, “AARP’s Tough Selling Job,” Washington Post, March 18, 2004; Dale Van Atta, “This Isn’t the Old AARP,” Los Angeles Times, November 24, 2003; “Fading Senior Support?” Newsweek, October 25, 2004. For an interesting observation on the role of aging boomers in AARP’s Medicare decision, see Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Milt Freudenheim, “AARP Support for Medicare Bill Came as Group Grew ‘Younger,’ ” New York Times, November 26, 2003. For one of Novelli’s many published explanations on the Medicare decision, see William D. Novelli, “AARP Stays Sharp,” Wall Street Journal, December 4, 2003.
27. According to one AARP source, the American business establishment was fearful of tampering with Social Security and only reluctantly supported the Bush administration private accounts initiative. Still, one major business magazine raised the questions of whether AARP’s commercial and political interests were in potential conflict—and whether many of their sponsored products represented the best value for seniors. See “By Raising Its Voice, AARP Raises Questions,” Businessweek, March 14, 2005.
28. “AARP Criticized over Health Plans,” editorial, Des Moines Register, April 24, 2009; see also Robert Pear, “AARP Orders Investigation Concerning Its Marketing,” New York Times, November 19, 2008.
29. See Bob Trebilcock’s series “AARP Funds: Is AARP Looking Out for You?” (Mutual Funds, July 9, 2009; Life Insurance and Annuities, August 5, 2009; Auto and Homeowners Insurance, August 26, 2009; Health and Long Term Care Insurance, October 9, 2008), all at CBS Moneywatch.com, http://moneywatch.bnet.com/retirement-planning/feature/is-aarp-looking-out-for-you/351187/?tag=video-351895;related-link-2.
30. Charles Morris, The AARP (New York: Times Books, 1996), 58.
31. These quotes are from the 2006 Strategic Plan—representative of an evolving document about midway through Novelli’s transformative reign.
32. AARP’s coveted public trust was damaged recently via a lawsuit and subsequent congressional hearings claiming that some AARP-endorsed high-deductible health insurance policies (through United Health Care) did not provide adequate catastrophic coverage; see Pear, “AARP Orders Investigation.” In addition, a widely circulated article by Bloomberg News Service called attention to AARP’s rake-off from the comparatively high prices of insurance products endorsed and sold by the organization. See Gary Bohn and Darrell Preston, “AARP Gets a Cut of Policies It Endorses: Insurance Prices Are Called Inflated Because of Royalties,” Detroit Free Press, December 7, 2008.
33. Simpson, “Let ’er Rip!”
34. On the AARP’s increasingly aggressive “business” persona, see Claudia H. Deutsch, “AARP Wants You (to Buy Its Line of Products),” New York Times, October 28, 2005.
35. John Rother had been active in getting AARP to prepare for the boomers before Bill Novelli arrived. On these early efforts, see Susan Levine, “AARP Hopes Boom Times Are Ahead,” Washington Post, June 2, 1998; also David J. Lipke, “Fountain of Youth: AARP Woos Reluctant Boomers with High-Priced Makeover,” American Demographics 22 (September 2000): 37–40.
36. Robert Samuelson, “AARP’s America Is a Mirage,” Washington Post, July 4, 2006.
37. Proceeds from the books sales went to the AARP Foundation.
38. AARP, Reimagining America, 1.
39. The preface of Reimagining America states: “AARP believes that as a nation we can balance longer lives with the pressures of the aging of the boomers and increased longevity put on our social systems. While this is often described as a confounding problem of demographics, it is actually driven by the fragmented and disorganized delivery of health care which costs too much and delivers to little.”
40. AARP, Reimagining America, 19.
41. Reimagining America’s boldface preface declares: “We also believe that solutions must come from collaboration among government, private organizations, and individuals.”
42. Ibid., 3.
43. Ibid., 19.
44. Christopher Buckley wrote about this encounter with Shepherd in “I Dream of Cybill Shepherd . . . ,” Wall Street Journal, November 2, 2004.
45. The October 2005 conference scheduled for New Orleans was canceled because of Hurricane Katrina.
46. Jody Holtzman, interview with the author, December 5, 2007, Washington, DC.
47. Joanne Handy, Jennie Chin Hansen, and John Rother, “Reimagining America’s Healthcare: AARP Targets Healthcare Reform” and “How to Talk to the American Public about Health Reform: Results of AARP Message Research,” joint presentations at the annual meetings of the American Society on Aging/National Conference on Aging, Chicago, March 7, 2007.
48. Pew Research Center, “No Post-Trip Bounce for Obama: Inflation Staggers Public, Economy Still Seen as Fixable,” report, July 31, 2008, http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/438.pdf 6.
49. U. S. Census Bureau, “An Older and More Diverse Nation by Mid-century,” press release, August 14, 2008, www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/population/cb08–123.html; see also Conor Dougherty, “Whites to Lose Majority Status in the U.S. by 2042,” Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2008, A3.
50. “AARP Ethel Percy Andrus Legacy Awards,” 2008, www.aarp.org/aarp/articles/the_aarp_ethel_percy.html.
1. Bill Novelli, interview with the author, Washington, DC, December 5, 2007.
2. AARP was also active in lobbying for the Serve America Act, designed to boost philanthropic and nonprofit organizations’ efforts to promote civic participation and volunteering.
3. Michael Winerip, telephone interview with the author, July 18, 2008.
4. Paul Briand, telephone interview with the author, August 3, 3009.
5. Kevin Bogardus, “AARP and Business Groups Lobby Hard for Bailout Package,” The Hill, October 1, 2008, http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/3756-aarp-and-business-groups-lobby-hard-for-bailout-package.
6. “AARP Congressional Awards Program,” February 19, 2009, www.aarp.org/makeadifference/advocacy/GovernmentWatch/articles/
congressional_awards.html.
7. “2008 AARP Voters Guide,” AARP Magazine, September/October 2008, 93–98.
8. A 2006 AARP National Member Survey about election issues found that 90 percent supported allowing Medicare to use its bargaining power to lower prices for prescription drugs; 81 percent opposed using Social Security taxes to fund private accounts; 72 percent supported a shared approach whereby the federal government, employers, and individuals together would pay for providing health care coverage for everyone; 69 percent supported a shared approach that would involve both government and individuals paying for long-term care; and 66 percent opposed changing the traditional Medicare program by imposing an annual limit on federal Medicare spending. “AARP National Member Survey about 2006 Election Issues,” June 26, 2006, http://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/general/election_2006.pdf.
9. AARP did resist George W. Bush’s efforts to establish private Social Security accounts. And Bill Novelli and John Rother have urgently warned about problems in risk-shift retirement—as they did in the prescient PBS Frontline documentary “Can You Afford to Retire?” May 16, 2006.
10. See A. Barry Rand, “Where We Stand: Health Reform Now,” AARP Bulletin, July–August 2009, 26.
11. Alicia Mundy and Laura Meckler, “Drug Makers Score Early Wins as Plan Takes Shape,” Wall Street Journal, July 17, 2009.
12. Ibid.
13. Reader comment on “Bill Novelli on the Financial Summit,” ShAARP Session, February 2009, http://blog.aarp.org/shaarpsession/2009/02/aarp_ceo_bill_novelli_reports.html.
14. Rachel Martin and Jake Tapper, “President Obama’s ‘Senior’ Moment,” Political Punch, August 2009, http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/08/president-obamas-senior-moment.html. (Several responses to the ABC News Web site reports indicated cancellation of AARP memberships.)
15. “Health Care Reform and You,” New York Times, July 26, 2009.
16. John Rother, interview, The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, August 11, 2009.
17. Reader comment on “Town Hall Meeting on Health Care Reform for Older Americans,” AARP Bulletin, July 17, 2009, http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourhealth/policy/articles/town_hall_meeting_on
_health_care_reform_for_older_americans.html.
18. Reader comment on “Bipartisan Group Eyes Medicare Savings,” AARP Bulletin, July 28, 2009, http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourhealth/medicare/articles/ap_sources_bipartisan_group
_eyes_medicare_savings.comments.0.html.
19. Mark Tapscot, “Obamacare Could Kill AARP,” Washington Examiner, July 30, 2009, www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Obamacare-could-kill-AARP-8036046–51988312.html; Drew Nannis, “AARP: Setting the Record Straight,” Washington Examiner, August 5, 2009, www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/OpEd-Contributor/AARP-Setting-the-record-straight-52105997.html.
20. One of the most devastating early critiques of the proposals was written by a former Clinton health care reform opponent, Betsy McCaughey, “GovernmentCare’s Assault on Seniors,” Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2006. This article was the primary target of John Rother’s rebuttals in “AARP Responds to Health Reform Scare Tactics,” AARP press release, July 24, 2009.
21. Frank Newport, “Americans on Healthcare Reform: Top 10 Takeaways,” Gallup Poll, July 31, 2009, www.gallup.com/poll/121997/americans-healthcare-reform-top-takeaways.aspx.
22. Ann Flaherty, “Emails from Public Overload House Web Site,” Associated Press, August 13, 2009, http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090813/D9A25N781.html.
23. Ceci Connolly, “Seniors Remain Wary of Health-Care Reform,” Washington Post, August 9, 2009.
24. Paul Steinhauser, “Poll Indicates Generational Split over Health Care,” CNN, August 5, 2009, www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/08/05/health.care.poll/index.html; also CNN Opinion Research Poll, August 4, 2008, http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/04/rel11b.pdf. A Gallup poll also found that those over age sixty-five were far less likely than other age groups to perceive that the new health care legislation would improve their medical care (Newport, “Americans on Healthcare Reform”).
25. Pew Research Center, “Obama’s Ratings Slide across the Board,” Section 4, “Health Care Overhaul,” July 30, 2009, http://people-press.org/report/532/obamas-ratings-slide. Americans over sixty-five were among those “very closely” following the issue (56 percent), as were college graduates (57 percent), those earning more than $75,000 (55 percent), and Republicans (56 percent). Conversely, the least interested were age eighteen to thirty-nine (37 percent), high school graduate or less (35 percent), and below $30,000 (32 percent). Half of boomers (age forty to sixty-four) were “very interested,” as were 46 percent of political independents and 42 percent of Democrats. Pew Research Center, “Many Fault Media Coverage of Health Care Debate,” report, August 6, 2009, http://people-press.org/report/533/many-fault-media-coverage-of-health-care. See also Charles M. Blow, “Health Care Hullabaloo,” New York Times, August 8, 2009.
26. “NBC News Health Care Survey,” August 2009, http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/NEWS/NBC-WSJ_Poll.pdf.
27. Miriam Jordan, “Illegal Immigration Enters the Health-Care Debate,” Wall Street Journal, August 15, 2009.
28. “Illegal Immigrants Debate Could Potentially Block Reform,” editorial, Los Angeles Times, August 17, 2009.
29. Ronald Brownstein, “The New Color Line,” National Journal, October 10, 2009.
30. Thomas Edsall, “Ghost Story: Realignment Was Just an Illusion,” New Republic, January 20, 2010.
31. Ronald Brownstein, “Dems Caught in Populist Crossfire,” National Journal, March 27, 2010.
32. Jonathan Weisman, “Middle Class Starts to Drift from Obama,” Wall Street Journal, March 26, 2010.
33. Peter Brown, “Like Affirmative Action, Arizona Law Splits Elites and the Public,” Wall Street Journal, May 20, 2010. And, again, see Damien Cave, “A Generation Gap over Immigration,” New York Times, May 17, 2010.
34. Dave Cook, “Healthcare Reform Has Turned into a Roller Derby, AARP Says,” Christian Science Monitor, October 14, http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/10/14heatlhcare-reform-has-turned-into-a-roller-derby-AARP-says.
35. Dan Eggen, “AARP: Reform Advocate and Insurance Salesman,” Washington Post, October 27, 2009.
36. Gardiner Harris, “A Heated Debate Is Dividing Generations in AARP,” New York Times, October 4, 2009.
37. National Public Radio/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health, “Survey on the Role of Health Care Interest Groups,” September 2009, www.npr.org/assets/news/health/2009/09/poll/topline.pdf. See also Peter Overby, “Conflict of Interest for ARP in Health Bill Debate?” National Public Radio, Morning Edition, November 4, 2009, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120069183.
38. “53% Have Favorable Opinion of AARP, but Health Care Issue Hurting Reputation,” Rasmussen Reports, November 29, 2009, www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare
/november_2009/53_have_favorable_opinion_of_aarp_but_health_care_issue_hurting_reputation.
39. “I Joined the New AARP!” January 17, 2010, Here’s My View on It!, http://moneyback1234.blogspot.com2010/01i-joined-new-aarp.html.
40. Ronald Brownstein, “The Other Health Care Story,” National Journal, September 5, 2009.
41. Timothy J. Burger, “Obama Campaign Ad Firms Signed On to Push Health-Care Overhaul,” August 15, 2009, www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aV3dLt6wmZH4.
42. Their new documentary I.O.U.S.A.: The Movie (dir. Patrick Creadon, prod. Christine O’Malley, 2008) gained critical attention during its run in theaters and has been aired subsequently as a two-hour weekend special on CNN, where Walker has become a frequent analyst.
43. On the “Blue Dog Democrats,” see Christopher Hayes, “Blue Dogs Bark,” Nation, February 11, 2009. Also within this same fiscally conservative orbit is a recently revived Americans for Generational Equity, founded and still guided extensively by Paul Hewitt, former George W. Bush appointee as Social Security Administration undersecretary and, before that, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Global Aging Program.
44. See James Ruttenberg, “Liberal Groups Are Flexing New Muscle in Lobby Wars,” New York Times, March 1, 2009.
45. Peter Wallsten, “Retooling Obama’s Campaign Machine for the Long Haul,” Los Angeles Times, January 14, 2009. See also Eric Etheridge, “Obama 2.0: Who’s Leading Who?” New York Times, January 16, 2009; Steve Benan, “The Political Animal,” Washington Monthly, January 14, 2009; “Obama Musters Campaign Army for Economic Fight,” Breitbart.com, March 9, 2009, www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.1da91b565bedacc6461ea17550408182.661&show_article=1; Peter Slevin and Michael Laris, “Obama’s Army on Road Again,” Washington Post, March 22, 2009, A01; Harold Meyerson, “An Army Untapped,” Washington Post, July 8, 2009; Peter Wallstein, “Obama’s Ground Level of Supporters Put to the Test,” Los Angeles Times, August 10, 2009; Eli Saslow, “Grass-Roots Battle Tests the Obama Movement,” Washington Post, August 23, 2009.
46. Maureen Dowd, “Toilet Paper Barricades,” New York Times, August 12, 2009.
47. John Rother, interview with the author, Washington, DC, June 2, 2010.
48. Nearly a week after my conversation with Rother about “reinvention,” a Wall Street Journal article noted the trend toward “reinvention” in late middle age—but with some sobering warnings. See Neil Parmar, “Middle Age Crazy? It’ll Cost You To Do Your Own Thing,” Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2010.
49. Alicia Williams, John Fries, Jean Koppen, and Robert Prisuta, “Connecting and Giving: A Report on How Mid-life and Older Americans Spend Their Time, Make Connections and Build Communities,” AARP report, January 2010, www.aarp.org/giving-back/volunteering/info-01–2010/connecting_giving.html.
50. Scott Harrington, a professor of health care management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, concluded that AARP’s willingness to support Medicare cuts in order to expand insurance to younger Americans was likely the result of “the organization’s reform agenda [that] reflects the progressive/liberal views of a leadership willing to risk alienating many members and prospective members in pursuing its vision.” “The AARP Paradox,” The American (Journal of the American Enterprise Institute), October 2009, www.american/com/archive/2009/October/the-aarp-paradox/article.html.
Chapter epigraphs are from David Brooks, “A Date with Scarcity,” New York Times, November 4, 2008, and Brett Arends, “A Nation of Helen Thomases,” Wall Street Journal, June 11, 2010.
1 Carleen MacKay, interview with the author, June 30, 2009.
2. Focalyst, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: Understanding Boomer Segments, Focalyst Insight Report, February 2009, www.focalyst.com/Sites/Focalyst/Media/Pdfs/en/CurrentResearchReports/
6808CC5C.pdf.
3. Peggy Noonan, “Remembering the Dawn of the Age of Abundance,” Wall Street Journal, February 20, 2009.
4. Quoted in Deborah Gage, “Context for Startups That Help Aging Boomers,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 18, 2009. The survey Holzman directed, S. Kathi Brown’s A Year-End Look at the Economic Slowdown’s Impact on Middle-Aged and Older Americans (Washington, DC: AARP Knowledge Management. January 2009), found that 68 percent had reduced entertainment spending and 64 percent had cut back on eating out; more seriously, 52 percent had difficulty paying for essential items such as food, gas, and medicine.
5. Boomers’ status as a recognizable sociological entity with a latent political identity (divided by subgroups) is strikingly similar to C. Wright Mills’s description sixty ago of a large, emerging “new middle class” of salaried office workers, salespeople, and professionals. Like the boomers, this growing occupational class was important because of its sheer size and because its development was unanticipated; white-collar workers were neither “proletariat” nor “bourgeoisie.” Mills found few signs of emerging white-collar class consciousness or political action by this large and potentially powerful entity. He might have been writing about today’s aging baby boomers when he stated, “They are diversified in social form, contradictory in material interest, dissimilar in ideological illusion; there is no homogeneity of base among them for a common political movement.” C. Wright Mills, White Collar (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951), 351–52.
6. Carleen MacKay, interview with the author, June 30, 2009.
7. Early Boomers: How America’s Leading Edge Baby Boomers Will Transform Aging, Work and Retirement (Westport, CT: Metlife Mature Market Institute/Peter Francese, LLC, September 2010).
8. On how “one legacy of the Great Recession is that insecurity and uncertainty have gone upscale,” see Robert Samuelson, “The Great Recession’s Stranglehold,” Washington Post, July 12, 2010.
9. MacKay, interview with author, June 30, 2009.
10. After the 2008 elections, gentry boomers on the Obama White House staff launched a media campaign to set Republican gentry against middle- and working-class so-called “Walmart Republicans” by attempting to label polarizing conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh as the “Voice of the Republican Party.” And the 2009 HBO documentary Right Americans—Feeling Wronged is a typical exercise in stereotyping—though not necessarily confined to boomers.
11. Kate Zernike and Megan Thee-Brenan, “Poll Finds Tea Party Backers Wealthy and More Educated,” New York Times, April 14, 2010. A subsequent Bloomberg national poll of Tea Party supporters found that 53 percent would consider raising the eligibility age for Medicare and 58 percent would consider similar action on Social Security—compared to 47 percent and 49 percent, respectively, of the general public. These are more modest reforms; the question of cutting benefits was not asked. See Lisa Lerer, “Poll: Tea Party Economic Gloom Fuels Republican Momentum,” October 13, 2010, www.bloomberg.com/news/2010–10–14/tea-party-s-economic-gloom-fuels-republican-election-momentum-poll-says.html. Also see a New York Times profile of a boomer couple who attended a Georgia town hall meeting by Kevin Sack, “Calm, but Moved to Be Heard on Health Care,” New York Times, August 25, 2009.
12. Paul Briand, interview with the author, August 4, 2009.
13. Robert B. Reich, Supercapitalism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007).
14. Robert Putnam, “E Pluribus Unum: Diversity and Community in the Twenty-First Century: The 2006 Joan Skytte Prize Lecture,” Scandinavian Political Studies 30, no. 2 (2007): 137–74.
15. One partial exception to this silence was a September 2008 panel discussion hosted by AARP International, entitled “Immigration: Challenges, Trends, and the Impact on the U.S. Labor Force,” www.aarpinternational.org/resourcelibrary/resourcelibrary_show.htm?doc_id=805430. Along with a onetime partnership with the National Council of LaRaza to educate elderly Hispanics and their families on the Medicare prescription drug program, the tone of the panel discussion and some other statements about a “universal approach to social problems” suggested to World Net Daily reporter Chelsea Schilling a latent AARP proimmigration entitlement tilt. See Chelsea Schilling, “Dark Secrets of AARP Finally Exposed to Light,” World Net Daily, May 14, 2010.
16. See Steven A. Camarota, Robert Rector, Mark Krikorian, and James R. Edwards Jr., “The Elephant in the Room: Panel on Immigration’s Impact on Health Care Reform,” Washington, DC, Center for Immigration Studies, August 2009, www.cis.org/Transcript/HealthCare-Immigration-Panel.
17. See Alan Berube et al., State of Metropolitan America (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2010).
18. For example, see John M. Bridgeland, Robert D. Putnam, and Harris L. Wofford, More to Give: Tapping the Talents of the Baby Boomer, Silent and Greatest Generations, report by Civic Enterprises in association with Peter D. Hart Research Associates (Washington, DC: AARP, September 2008). For assessments of boomers and civic engagement before the 2008 economic turmoil, see Laura B. Wilson and Sharon Simson, eds., Civic Engagement and the Baby Boom Generation (Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press, 2006).
19. J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman, Generation Ageless (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 213.
20. Ibid., 165.
21. Anonymous source, interview with the author, March 5, 2009.
22. Alicia Williams, John Fries, Jean Koppen, and Robert Prisuta, “Connecting and Giving: A Report on How Mid-life and Older Americans Spend Their Time, Make Connections and Build Communities,” AARP report, January 2010, www.aarp.org/giving-back/volunteering/info-01–2010/connecting_giving.html.
23. Jeff Opdyke, “Who Will Pay for College?” Wall Street Journal, August 16, 2008.
24. See Robert Nisbet, The Sociological Tradition (New York: Basic Books, 1966).
25. Brian Williams, on The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, July 17, 2009.
26. Andrew Kohut, “Would Americans Welcome Medicare if It Were Being Proposed in 2009?” Pew Research Center, August 19, 2009, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1317/would-americans-welcome-medicare-if-proposed-in-2009.
27. William A. Galston and Elaine C. Kamarck, “Change You Can Believe In Needs a Government You Can Trust,” Third Way Report, Washington, DC, November 2008, http://content.thirdway.org/publications/133/Third_Way_Report_-_Trust_in_Government.pdf.
28. Elaine C. Kamarck, “The Evolving American State: The Trust Challenge,” Forum 7, no. 4 (2009), art. 9.
29. Jason Zweig, “Will We Ever Trust Wall Street Again?” Wall Street Journal, February 7, 2010.
30. Paul Volcker, on The Charlie Rose Show, September 30, 2009, www.charlierose.com/view/interview/10635#frame_top.
31. Frank Luntz, “What Americans Really Want,” Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2009.
32. Pew Research Center, “The People and Their Government: Distrust, Discontent, Anger and Partisan Rancor,” report, April 18, 2010, http://people-press.org/reports/pdf/606.pdf. The Pew Center report was published on the heels of almost the exact same findings in a February 2010 New York Times/CBS News poll that found that only 19 percent of respondents felt they could trust the government to do the right thing “always” (3 percent) or “most of the time” (16 percent); conversely 81 percent responded “never” (7 percent) or “some of the time” (74 percent)—tied with 1995 as the lowest trust level since the poll began in 1976. New York Times/CBS News Poll, February 5–10, 2010, http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/images/nytint/docs/new-york-times-cbs-news-poll/original.pdf.
33. Don Peck, “How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America,” Atlantic Monthly, March 2010.
34. AARP, A Changing Political Landscape as One Generation Replaces Another (Washington, DC: AARP Knowledge Management, 2004), 14.
35. Ibid., 13.
36. Thomas J. Friedman, “The Fat Lady Has Sung,” New York Times, February 21, 2010; the call for regeneration was issued again in Thomas J. Friedman’s “Root Canal Politics,” New York Times, May 8, 2010.
37. David Brooks, “The Geezers’ Crusade,” New York Times, February 2, 2010.
38. Casey B. Mulligan, “Are We Overpaying Grandpa?” New York Times, February 24, 2010.
39. See Lerer, “Poll.”
40. “Mixed Views of GOP Proposals on Entitlements,” press release, Pew Research Center, September 13, 2010, http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1726/poll-social-security-medicare-republican-plans-bush-tax-cuts-gop-leader.
41. See Tara Siegel Bernard, “Social Security Jitters? Better Prepare Now,” New York Times, July 31, 2010; “Our View on Social Security: To Shore It Up, Raise the Retirement Age,” USA Today, September 22, 2010; and “Dealing with Deficits,” Los Angeles Times, October 16, 2010; “Our View on Social Security: Do a Favor for the Grandkids and Don’t Give Seniors a Raise,” USA Today, October 21, 2010; Nancy LeaMond, “Opposing View on Social Security: Seniors Need Relief to Keep Up,” USA Today, October 20, 2010; Ronald Brownstein, “Misplaced Zinger,” National Journal, October 21, 2010.
42. Fareed Zakaria, “How to Restore the American Dream,” Time, November 1, 2010.
43. For example, see Bill Galston and Maya MacGuineas, “The Future Is Now: A Balanced Plan to Stabilize the Public Debt and Promote Economic Growth,” September 30, 2010, http://crfb.org/document/future-now-plan-stabilize-public-debt-and-promote-economic-growth.
44. See a remarkable “AARP Solutions Forum” panel discussion that includes AARP’s John Rother, the retirement economist Alicia Munnell (cited frequently in this book), Alice Rivlin (a Brookings Institution senior fellow), and other experts: “Social Security and the Future of Retirement,” September 22, 2010, http://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/ppi/econ-sec/transcript-092210.pdf.
45. Again see Michael Kinsley, “It’s the Least We Can Do,” Atlantic Monthly, October 2010, and the online forum on Kinsley’s article “exploring the legacy of the Baby Boomers and what they owe the country.”