Older workers keeping young adults out of jobs

[Cali_Democrat]

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Older-workers-keeping-young-rb-927177879.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=5&asset=&ccode=

On Wednesday April 7, 2010, 1:36 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Young adults in the United States are being squeezed out of the labor force as older workers either delay retirement or seek jobs to rebuild nest eggs destroyed by the recession, a study showed on Wednesday.

The size of the labor force fell 6.3 percent for young workers, but increased 8.5 percent for workers 55 years and older between December 2007 and January 2010, according to the study by the Washington-based Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

"This is a troubling development, young adults are less prepared to deal with unemployment than other age groups. Without significant prior full-time work experience, many may not qualify for unemployment insurance, or the social safety net," the EPI said.

The housing-led recession, which struck in December 2007, has had devastating effects on the labor market. With home values and retirement savings destroyed, older workers have been forced to either continue working or seek employment.

The study noted that even if young workers were employed, they were most likely to be in jobs below their skills level.

"With such little financial security, young workers have less freedom to wait out a downturn and so they frequently take whatever job is available, even if it pays less than a job that matches their skill level," it said.

"This is a serious drain on labor market potential -- lower earnings, lower output, lower productivity, and the displacement of less-educated workers. Low wages also jeopardize the return to higher education."

Read more at link...http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Older-workers-keeping-young-rb-927177879.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=5&asset=&ccode=

[Gidney N Cloyd]

1. Let me put in my dentures...

:popcorn:

[Liberal_in_LA]

13. lol. me too

:popcorn:

[CLANG]

18. I still have all my original teeth!!

:popcorn:

[Gidney N Cloyd]

36. (I do, too. I was just positioning myself on the continuum. )

[Donnachaidh]

48. in a jar or a box?

:::::::::::::::::runs like hell:::::::::::::::::::::

[YOY]

2. Fight peasants!!!

It's not a class war...no no no...it's an AGE war...oh you silly peons!

[hobbit709]

3. So older workers who were dumped because of their age are to blame?

[RobinA]

21. I Don't Know About You

but I am looking forward to working until I'm 90 just so I can keep some youngster from getting a job. Hell, I could retire and have fun with my millions, but it would be more fun to think about the person who COULD be doing my job if I would let him or her.

[blondeatlast]

38. Obviously your millions mean you can afford an Audio-Animatronic character to yell

"Hey you kids! Get off my lawn!" while you make some bright, eager youngster starve.

Kudos! :thumbsup:

[laughingliberal]

41. ROFL!! nt

[county worker]

4. If you list the troubles older workers have along with the younger workers you get a different

picture. The corporations are always pitting us against one another so we will not unite to do something about it.
The problem is lack of jobs and low pay for the ones that exist.

[blondeatlast]

30. EXCELLENT point. Kudos.

:thumbsup:

[laughingliberal]

33. Exactly! As I always say:

If you find yourself directing your anger at any other working class individual or group, you have been deceived. The aristocracy will thank you for your cooperation.

[Warpy]

5. Get used to it, kids, the Robbed Generation

is going to need to work at least part time until they either drop or need to enter a nursing home.

That's because older boomers had their wages depressed all their working lives, their pensions looted by corporate hacks, and were unable to save on their own due to these two factors plus the government's constant lying about the inflation rate in order that their wages would be depressed.

No one bothered to care what was happening to them.

Oh, don't worry, those nice corporate jobs in clean offices won't hire them. They'll be working low level jobs and restaurant jobs, low paid, dead end jobs to supplement inadequate social security checks just so they can continue to eat.

"Golden Years," my ass.

[Cali_Democrat]

8. One could argue that the "Robbed Generation" did it to themselves

The young adults weren't the ones that voted in Nixon, Reagan, Bush 1 and Bush 2. Why should the young adults suffer the consequences?

So the people hardest hit are the people who weren't even born or couldn't vote when those horrific policies were enacted.

No? :shrug:

[Warpy]

16. What makes you think we did?

While there were a a few of boomers barely eligible to vote in 1968, we were vastly outnumbered by Generation Suck, the "greatest" generation, and those older who had hated the New Deal. The second cohort of boomers were largely what swept Reagan into office, together with the above.

Seems like there's some math you need to start doing.

With the pendulum creaking back toward the left, the younger people who feel so horribly put upon are eventually going to do really, really well.

Not so the oldest boomers. We're just plain fucked and we never got kissed.

[BonnieJW]

17. We didn't vote for them either.

When Regan came into office, I had to go back to work part time. Wages never kept up with expenses after that, even though we had two incomes. We kept falling farther and farther behind. Then sending the kids to college and helping them after college. It's only now that we have to catch up. And we weren't crazy spending either. We saved and budgeted, just like we were supposed to.

[YOY]

20. Only the ones who voted for it.

Cheering their own demise.

The rest have to suffer with their peers poor decision making.

On the flip side I work with some older folks who have uncanny experience, wisdom, and ideas. Not to patronize but I appreciate them.

[CLANG]

23. I didn't vote for any of them! Why should I suffer the consequences?

[EFerrari]

27. I didn't vote for any of those people but thanks for blaming me for them!

[RamboLiberal]

49. Excuse me but this Boomer didn't vote for any of these Repukes

And I sure did my best to talk to my peers to defeat them. But there were helluva lot of fools who didn't listen.

Hell and there are people here who argued last week to raise the retirement age.

Of course as we boomers try to hold on to any damn job we can get to try to rebuild our devastated 401ks and IRAs we are depressing the job market for the younger workers.

Many of us may have to work till they drag our dead bodies off the WalMart greeter line.

Anyone remember those heady days under Clinton when our 401k's grew at a rate that many of us thought we had a chance at a good early retirement??????

[Donnachaidh]

50. oh bite me -- *did it to themselves* -- swill down that load of horse shit

Yeah right.

Those older Americans who worked their asses off to buy things for the KIDS now are getting crapped on because they won't roll over and die so the little whiny baby kids can work? Somebody call a WAAAAHHHMBULANCE for those little monsters.

Karma waits dear. Don't get old. Not with THAT attitude. :rofl:

[Cali_Democrat]

55. Those people aren't getting crapped on by the "kids"

They're getting crapped on by Reaganomics and other policies that have destroyed the middle class. The younger generation certainly isn't responsible for those policies.

Perhaps the baby boomers shouldn't have voted for people like Reagan or should have done a better job of convincing their peers not to support corporate whores.

Youngsters are getting the shaft when they had no say in the first place.

[Donnachaidh]

77. oh - so advocating that they LEAVE jobs for your benefit isn't crapping on them?

That's denial at a level I haven't seen in anyone except republicans.

Those folks don't owe YOU anything. And real nice whining because they haven't died fast enough for you to maintain your *lifestyle*.

[Blue_In_AK]

57. I never voted for one of those asshats.

[WillyT]

66. Gen Fight... Gen Fight !!!

:evilgrin:

:yoiks:

[MattBaggins]

70. I'm gonna go out tomorow and kick some old persons walker out from under them.

[unapatriciated]

72. lol

does that mean I get to spank my kids.:shrug:

[Blue_In_AK]

6. Well, I did my part.

Early social security rocks. I'm not rich, but I'm happy.

[MineralMan]

7. Uff da! Even us old farts have to eat and pay our bills.

I'll keep working, if you don't mind.

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. Two words

Health Insurance.

[Faygo Kid]

10. Yeah, those greedy 55 year olds 10 years away from Medicare. How dare they look for work!

Like my significant other, who lost her job at the end of last year? What is she supposed to do? Generational warfare benefits only one group - the richest Republicans. And they are trying to stir it up.

[DJ13]

11. Older people shouldnt NEED to work

If they hadnt been ripped off by Wall Street, ripped off by their former employers who under funded their pensions, ripped off by a rigged housing market designed to collapse, they would be more than willing to finally take that retirement they worked all their life for.

The youth arent the victims, were all the victims of a predatory capitalist society that leeches off us.

[laughingliberal]

39. Nailed it. Plus add those ripoffs to the slow ripoff of stagnant and declining wages

for 30 years and you have a population over 50 who aren't likely to be leaving the work force as long as they can still get themselves there every day.

I just laugh at all that 'Greatest Generation' stuff. The 'Greatest Generation,' reaped all the benefits of the labor movement and the New Deal like GI bills and, as soon as they were set, started voting in the likes of Reagan so those who came after them would not have those advantages. Then they all went around singing Sinatra's "My Way," and telling anyone who would listen how they did it without any help from anyone.

[Eg-ptiangirl]

12. stupid discussion

every1 who can do a job deserves to do it if he finds the chance and no one is taking other 1 job. It is clear that the system itself is wrong, for example there are American factories here that are opened to employ cheaper employees than Americans, they are dangerous to both my country and to your country. The problem is the total dissolution of the economic borders that made it easy for economy to travel from country to another country each time they face any trouble, in the past sharing the good and bad was the rule but now the economy is free from all responsibilities and circumstances, they don't have to cope with local factors any more. Why would any one employ a 26 yrs American with say 20000 when he can employ 36 yrs from a 3rd world country with 200. There is no national or any local economy nowadays, there are only rules that will define you as a citizen but there are no rules that can define economy in any country any more. For them you were supposed to die in the natural selection but since they can't literally kill you now they will kill your freedom and make themselves free from any rules.

[laughingliberal]

43. +1 nt

[aikoaiko]

64. Welcome to DU

:hi:

Thank you for your insight.

[JHB]

14. Lending new literalness to the phrase "Yahoo Finance" n/t

[Diane R]

15. I agree with this. Larry King, Barbara Walters, Andrea Mitchell...on and on.

I know a lot of great 20-somethings who are unemployed, or underemployed. I also know a lot of 60 year old friends who have had 35+ years of full time employment as teachers, government workers, etc., with great pensions who just won't step aside and make room for a young person. I know many people 55+ are in dire straits and need to work....but many could easily afford to retire and cling to their jobs out of greed.

I wish we would stop celebrating people like King, Walters, Mitchell, etc. I'm tired of their faces and I want young people to get their chances.

[RobinA]

25. Cling To Jobs

because of greed? THAT'S a bit much. I have a hard time believing that the few people who are clinging to jobs through greed, if they exist at all, are in such a numbers hat they have any effect whatsoever on the employment picture.

[blondeatlast]

35. So the article worked for you--some of us are able to read between the lines (and consider

the source, too).

[Donnachaidh]

53. wow -- age bigotry.

:wow:

[ima_sinnic]

65. awww

:nopity:

yeah, I want to work at some stinking job well into my 90s just to piss off younger, rude, wannabe workers. Grunting at some wage-slave job is so fulfilling for greedhead oldsters.

[DavidDvorkin]

19. Lower the age of full Social Security and raise the monthly amounts

and provide universal medical care, and that problem would quickly solve itself. Millions of older workers would be happy to quit their regular jobs and either retire or start their own businesses if they could.

It would be a huge boon for the economy.

[RamboLiberal]

51. Agree - I've heard Thom Hartmann mention this many times

IMHO if this happened the economy may well boom!

[Chisox08]

60. That still won't guarantee jobs will open up for young American workers.

Once those older workers are off the market what is to stop them from getting some young cheap labor from India, China or some other third world hell hole?

[Odin2005]

22. And people wonder why I HATE seniority privileges.

Just another way older workers, mainly Boomers, screw us 20-somethings.

[laughingliberal]

40. Then you'd best be letting your reps know you are not in favor of raising the age for SS benefits or

cutting the benefits. Most older workers would prefer to retire.

I suspect, too, you will feel differently at 50 when you have put 30 years into a profession.

[Odin2005]

76. I think SS benifits need to be INCREASED.

Paid for by turning FICA into a progressive income tax and raising it on the rich.

[spinbaby]

24. We'd love to retire

We're in our late 50s with a moderate nest egg--nowhere near the million the financial advisors keep talking about, but enough. But we're afraid to retire--afraid we won't be able to get insurance, afraid of inflation, afraid Social Security will go away.

By the way, a few days ago an 80-year-old Disney bus driver rear ended a car. Think he was working because he wanted to or because he had to?

[Hello_Kitty]

26. What a great time to do "entitlement reform"!! eom

[laughingliberal]

37. Yes, isn't it?

I'm not sure how younger workers are able to simultaneously argue for entitlement reform (which is likely to be a proposal to further raise the retirement age and ratchet down the benefits) and complain we aren't retiring fast enough. The ability to hold two opposing and contradictory opinions at the same time is strong in some.

[jmm]

28. This article should be blaming the economy instead of pitting people against each other.

People who are forced to delay retirement shouldn't be blamed for the bad economy.

[ParkieDem]

31. I agree, but ...

First, many of these "older workers" were not saving for retirement in the first place -- instead, they were taking out home equity loans and continuing to fuel the consumer-driven bubble economy. Our savings rate in this country has been too low for way too long, and while this includes lots of 30- and 40-somethings, it also includes lots of baby boomers who are now reaching retirement age. The statistics show that less than half of people have even calculated what they need to retire, and almost a third think they'll be able to retire on less than $250,000 (which most people can't).

Second, because Social Security and most defined-benefit pensions in this country are based on a Ponzi-like idea, we need workers staying in the job market longer. This is a good thing, not a bad thing (so long as people aren't working themselves to death). A society becomes more prosperous when it mas more people in the job market. If these people were to leave the job market just so younger workers could get hired, they'd be a burden on the system -- without producing anything in return. Sure, it sounds good to have that 68-year old retire so a 23-year old can get a job, but that 23-year old then has to turn around and support that 68-year old with Social Security taxes, Medicare taxes -- and if he works for a public company whose stock is in the 68-year old's pension or 401(k), he has the added pressure of performance and profit growth to ensure that those investments are secure.

It's not a zero-sum game here.

[laughingliberal]

42. Oh, BS!

The current situation has been building for much longer that the housing bubble which fueled the last crash. Those of us who have been working 30 years saw 401k's devastated more than once. Add to that the fact that the last 30 years have seen wages stagnate and, in reality, decline and you're asking people to save more every year while their standard of living declined.

As for the SS problem, it was the excuse given when Raygun raised our payroll taxes-the need to prepare for this day of many people reaching retirement age. Meanwhile he cut the taxes on the richest and they have used our SS taxes to fund the policies the taxes on the rich should have been funding. Now, it's time to pay it back and it's rip off the boomers again time. A little anti-boomer propaganda to make it acceptable to screw us and it's a done deal. We'll be working til we die or we'll go back to the days before SS when starvation was the leading cause of death among the elderly.

[NNN0LHI]

29. We had plenty of idiots who went out of my factory feet first after over 40 years on the job

Just one more year they kept saying for over a decade. Never collected one retirement check.

Only people at their retirement parties were EMTs and nurses beating on their chests trying and gets their hearts restarted.

Most of them were cheap as could be and the first thing all their widows and grown kids did was go out and piss away the money they worked for all that time like it was going out of style. Lived the good life after the old boy was gone.

Shit in my department soon as you had enough years to retire all the rest of the guys started bringing in lots of fried chicken and greasy donuts for you to munch on. It was the only way we could move up in seniority and get some young guys hired in.

Don

[blondeatlast]

32. This ARTICLE is designed to be divisive flamebait--in the workplace and society at large.

More pitting the workers against each other (as a couple of DUers have pointed out).

I'm not sure what the mods do when the article is the problem, but I call 'em as I see 'em--and that article is divisive, corporatist (and I shy away from that word generally) flamebait.

Edit: and it's worked well already.

[Caliman73]

47. I agree

It is typical corporate bull shit. Use the natural tensions between generations to stoke the flames while they slink away and export jobs to countries where they pay pennies per hour instead of a living wage. Let the young people get angry and irrational and the older people defensive and derisive about the damn kids.

Wake up people. There would be jobs enough for all if corporations were not driven only by profit above all.

[blondeatlast]

54. The race/gender/age/sexual preference/you name it blame game

has been a successful tool to stifle union organization. It's very subtle--so people don't see it working.

This thread is a SHINING example of it in action.

[Caliman73]

62. Right again.

It is insidious and has been in play in this country for a long time.

[G_j]

34. and the older workers working below their skills?

and lower the retirement age..Duh!

[Greyhound]

44. Typically divisive false premise.

More accurate; Fed policies force experienced workers out.

[B Calm]

45. I fully support Thom Hartmann's Cash for Geezers!

[RamboLiberal]

52. Me Too

I don't understand those who willingly want to continue to work. I could find far more valuable things to do with my time including a ton of books to read and volunteer opportunities at food banks, animal shelters, libraries, plus travel.

[frustrated_lefty]

46. Tenured faculty come to mind.

Academic research is a microcosm unto itself, granted, and there's long been an overabundance of post-docs preparing to make the leap to "faculty-hood." Faculty are retiring later, though, and many universities are under a hiring freeze. It sucks having a Ph.D. not worth the paper it's written on.

[RagAss]

56. I work with a 72 year old who sleeps all day.....the company wouldn't dare fire him...

we all do more work because of him....10-12 hour days....Fucked Up !!!!!!!!!!!

[blondeatlast]

58. Funny, I've worked with some 20-somethings who did exactly the same thing. nt

[RagAss]

59. 20-somethings are fired every 10 minutes....you can't touch an old-timer.

[blondeatlast]

61. I think your problem is with the employer, not the employee.

I'd say that is fucked up--most places will let the oldster go so they don't have to kick in for his retirement.

For every lame-ass "the old guys did it" I can argue the opposite.

That you took the bait that YAHOO offered shows you aren't quite as sharp as you think you are. Read through the thread--we "oldsters" (I'm forty-five) have something we can teach you.

You are being used--and you are eating it up. Sad.

[RagAss]

63. I'm 52 !...I'm talking about a 72 year old here.

[southernyankeebelle]

67. So what are older workers who have families to feed suppose to do

Rob a bank? Come on. Companies that pay well aren't hiring older workers. I am 62 and I retired because I can't find a job. I have a family too. I know its hard for everyone. But just don't blame older workers either. I am sure many would do anything to get a higher paying job like she used to.

[RagAss]

68. delete

[iris27]

69. They took our jobs!

DER TUK R JERBS!!!

:evilgrin:

[WillyT]

71. See How Divide And Conquer Works ??? - Very Effective, No ???

:banghead:

:shrug:

[blondeatlast]

73. This thread is a shining example of it--complete with stereotypes, blame,

and shiny diversions.

Fortunately, a few DUers have caught the operation and called it out. Still, I find myself sadly shaking my head.

[wickerwoman]

74. Yep. Why address the system when you can set the peons at each others throats?

When was the last time you saw a paper-boy who was under 18? I bet the average age of McDonalds workers has increased by 5-10 years since 1970.

That's not because older people are "stealing" jobs from younger people or are "holding on" to their crappy jobs. It's because they lost higher paying jobs and are being crushed in with the 16 year olds.

And sorry, but if you're 55 and have limited savings, a mortgage to pay, incipient health problems and very likely family members to support, you *need* two or three of those shitty service jobs just as much if not more than a teenager living at home.

But it's the fact that that 55 year old needs to work 2 crummy part-time service jobs that we should be addressing. Not who deserves them more.

[Stevenmarc]

75. Well those Death Panels should fix that soon enough.