Young Americans.

A Moment of Clarity.

words.

"The upgrading of old age also undermines the status quo. To be sure, millions of older Americans are frail, sickly or poor. But many more aren’t. Older Americans are generally healthier and wealthier than ever. Someone now 65 can, on average, expect to live another 19 years, up about two years since 1990. More years are spent in relatively good health, finds a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, because major disabilities are occurring later. Meanwhile, Americans age 65 and older regularly rate their finances better than do those in other age groups according to surveys by NORC, an opinion research organization at the University of Chicago. In 2012, 41 percent of those 65 and older were “satisfied” with their finances and 20 percent dissatisfied (the rest were in between). Among those ages 35 to 49, only 25 percent were satisfied and 29 percent were dissatisfied.

Generational warfare upsets us because it pits parents against children. The elderly’s well-being partly reflects Social Security and Medicare’s success, but it also comes at the expense of younger Americans. We pretend these discomforting conflicts don’t exist. But they do and are rooted in changing demographics, slower economic growth and competing concepts of old age. They cannot be dissolved by pious invocations that “we’re all in this together.” To date, the contest has been one-sided; now the other side is beginning to stir."

THE WASHINGTON POST: America’s clash of generations is inevitable