Paul Taylor - The Next America: Boomers, Millennials, and the Looming Generational Showdown

To Andy and Stefanie

Copyright 2014 by Paul Taylor.

All charts, graphs, and figures 2014, Pew Research Center. All rights reserved.

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Book design by Cynthia Young

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Taylor, Paul, 1949

The next America : boomers, millennials, and the looming generational showdown / Paul Taylor.First edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61039-351-5 (electronic)

1. Baby boom generationUnited States. 2. Generation YUnited States. 3. Conflict of generationsUnited States. 4. GenerationsUnited States. 5. United StatesPopulation. I. Title.

HN59.T39 2014

305.20973dc23

2013036139

First Edition

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

CONTENTS

Once you get far enough along in life, youre likely to be struck by the distance between the views in front of you and the ones you can still dimly make out in your rear-view mirror. I turn 65 this year. The America of my childhoodwith its expanding middle class, secure jobs, intact nuclear families, devout believers, distinct gender roles, polite politics, consensus-building mediais nothing like the country my year-old granddaughter will inherit. Our political, social, and religious institutions are weaker, our middle class smaller, our cultural norms looser, our public debate coarser, our technologies faster, our immigrant-woven tapestry richer, and our racial, ethnic, religious, and gender identities more ambiguous. As a society, weve become more polarized and more tolerantand no matter what were like today, were going to be different tomorrow. Change is the constant.

Were also getting a whole lot older, as is almost every other nation on the planetthe fruits of longer life spans and lower birthrates that are each unprecedented in human history. These new demographics of aging mean that pretty soon we wont be able to pay for all the promises weve made to oldsters like me. So well have to either shrink their social safety net or raise taxes on their children and grandchildren. This reckoning has the potential to set off a generation war, though it doesnt have to.

This book applies a generational lens to explore the many ways America is changing. It pays particular attention to our two outsize generationsthe Baby Boomers, fifty- and sixty-somethings having trouble coming to terms with getting old, and the Millennials, twenty-somethings having trouble finding the road map to adulthood. It looks at their competing interests in the big showdown over entitlement reform that our politicians, much as they might try, wont be able to put off for much longer. It also examines how the generations relate to one another not only as citizens, voters, and interest groups, but as parents, children, and caregivers in an era when the family itself is one of our institutions most buffeted by change.

I dont presume to know how my story ends. Years ago when I was a political reporter I had a weakness for trying to forecast election outcomes. I was about as reliable as a coin flip. Eventually it dawned on me that the future was going to arrive anyway, unbidden by me, and that prediction was something of a mugs game. The only forecasts Ill venture in this book will be about the future we already knowthe parts baked in by the demographics and the data. Mostly my aim is to be a tour guide who explains how our nation got from the middle of the last century to the present, then provides some insights about what this breathtaking journey tells us about the changes yet to come. Ill conclude with some thoughts on how to renegotiate the social compact between the generations on equitable terms for all.

Be forewarned: There are a lot of data in this book. Numbers are the coin of the realm at the Pew Research Center, where Ive worked since we opened our doors a decade ago. Our staff is a mix of public opinion survey researchers, political scientists, demographers, economists, sociologists, and ex-reporters like me. We call ourselves a fact tank and were fond of the aphorism attributed to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan: Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts. We think good data make good facts, and were just idealistic enough to believe that a common foundation of facts can help societies identify problems and discover solutions.

We know, of course, that numbers arent omniscient. And were aware that public opinion surveys, in particular, can sometimes convey a false certitude that disguises ambiguities of heart, soul, and mind. If you ask Americans whether they favor more assistance to the poor, 65% will say yes. If you ask them whether they favor more spending on welfare, just 25% will say yes. Which finding is true? Probably both. Do I contradict myself? Walt Whitman once asked. Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes. I sometimes wonder whether he had a peek at our survey findings.

But while were well acquainted with the limitations of survey research, we also appreciate its value. In the shout-fest that passes for public discourse these days, politicians and pundits frequently claim to speak for the public. Opinion surveys allow the public to speak for itself. Each person has an equal chance to be heard. Each opinion is given an equal weight. Thats the same noble ideal that animates our democracy.

D EMOGRAPHIC TRANSFORMATIONS are dramas in slow motion. They unfold incrementally, almost imperceptibly, tick by tock, without trumpets or press conferences. But every so often, as the weight of change builds, a society takes a hard look at itself and notices that things are different. These aha moments are rare and revealing. One occurred on November 6, 2012, the night of President Barack Obamas reelection victory in a campaign that, given the political headwinds stirred by four years of high unemployment, he had every reason to lose.