This situation is the first generation facing the end of pensions, the first generation trying to retire on market individualized retirement plans and basic social security alone. The free marketeers and the “you can do better than your pension fund” evangelists, most of whom are involved in asset management themselves, brought us this disaster.
Compound that with the “die broke” movement that extolls profligate spending in mid life over saving, the urbanization of the populace, cost of health care, and unwillingness of people to relocate to much less expensive locations (I’ll leave affordable housing out of the equation, as there is affordable housing, just not in the hyper growth cores and the debate in those cores is toxic and intractable), and you have a situation where an entire generation is unable to afford life at their age, let alone retire.
My parents are well educated, successful in their healthcare career, saved their entire life eschewing vacations and nice cars, and were self employed so didn’t have access to employer match, benefits, and paid double taxes on their business income then personal income. They have enough, and live in a very inexpensive part of the country. But even then it’s a just barely situation. I have to help them with repairs and wonder if they have enough for 15 or 20 years. I figure at some point they’ll be dependent on me.
At some point we have to acknowledge the free market doesn’t work for everything. That what sounds good in a screed doesn’t always work well in the real world, where every permutation plays out in a human life but without do-overs, where the average experience isn’t a sufficient metric, where optimal expectation isn’t the singular goal, where it’s not just someone else, someone else’s parents, it’s you and your parents. And one day, it’ll be your kids. How many generations will we subject to this 1980’s republican dystopia?