As a capitalist state, our nation’s economy is predicated on growth.
Investments are based on the potential for it. Executives are awarded for achieving it. Markets fall at just the hint of failure of it. Financial pundits who read the tea leaves often look at the housing industry, and if the construction of new homes fails to climb, the economy is perceived to be failing, too. Either we’re in a bull market, charging up the Dow Jones Industrial, or a bear one that demands we all circle the wagons for the next recession.
There is no sense of calm. A sense of calm charts out like a plateau. A plateau looks like a flat line. A flat line looks too much like a bad EKG. No one wants to see a flat EKG. Not in an economy. Not in a hospital. It means one thing: A lack of potential is one way of putting it.
Much has been said about a recovering economy in recent years, but such declarations ring hollow after recent reports claim Millennials are to earn less than their parents did. National Public Radio reported that only half of the children born in 1985 are to surpass their parents. In contrast, 90 percent of children born in 1940 were likely to earn more than their parents.
Yes, the United States was still suffering from the Great Depression in 1940, so the prospect of children earning more is plausible. On the other end of the spectrum, the computer-aided efficiency of the American workforce never improved more than in the 1980s. But, in between those years, the line graph continued to fall while the price of the American Dream continued to rise.
Many of us grew up with a “Leave It To Beaver” vision of the world: A family of four living in the suburbs with a car in the driveway, all supported on a single income. Mom stayed home while dad went to work. He brought home the check, and earned a good pension, too. I don’t recall whether it was required that he went to college.
Today, many entry-level jobs in the private sector require a college education. That forces incoming candidates to already be in debt before earning that first paycheck. That first paycheck is just the first in hundreds committed towards paying off an average of $30,000 in college debt.
And, hopefully that debt is paid off before the arrival of his or her first born, because now we have to start talking about daycare. An average home doesn’t allow for June Cleaver to stay home and watch the kids, she’s going to work in the office, too. The average cost of daycare runs nearly $1,000 a month, or another mortgage payment.
Maybe add into the equation the frequency with which we are getting divorced? After all, the stress of cultivating a professional career, raising children and maintaining a household is monstrous. In 1940, the divorce rate was 20 percent. It was about the same in 1957 when “Leave It To Beaver” first aired on television (22 percent). In 1985, that changed to 50 percent. Just think, a college-educated ex-husband succeeding in the private sector could take home less today than Eddie Haskell flipping burgers at a proposed $15 an hour.
Something is not right.
There are too many hard working families, who are sensible with spending, struggling with grocery bills each week. This perceived growth in our economy is not coming back down to those who work within it, and pay back into it. When our youngest generation is forced to calmly accept less earnings than their parents, the EKG has most certainly flatlined — there is no potential.