Did you hear? They dumped the penny. Our financial problems are solved.
No matter, the only people left using exact change are the anal retentive, tabletop hoarders or seemingly every person I get behind at the grocery store. But that didn’t stop folks on Facebook from going all atwitter and folks on Twitter from going all, well, whatever they do there, over the change to our change.
Too bad my generation, and the ones who follow, seem once again too distracted by shiny objects to see the important story.
But if you were mistaken about who the rules are made for, and who is going to be asked to cover the costs of the Age of Austerity, the federal budget did a whole lot about clearing that up.
Too bad you were too busy talking about the penny.
The key struggles of our society are not defined by right and left, conservative and liberal. That might work for the cable-news addicted among us who still block off their world that way.
But as we found out this week, it’s all about generations. That’s where the real fight has been taking place since the 1990s, even though one side has been busy stacking the deck in its favour while the other is waiting in line for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
Last week, when the feds rolled out the latest budget, it set a date in stone: March 31, 1958.
If you were born before that, you’ll live out life as if nothing happened. Starting 2023, the age of Old Age Security eligibility will be raised from 65 to 67. And that’s just the start of the slide. As more Boomers retire, forcing more workers employed at even lower wages to cover retirement costs, that number will keep rising.
Funny, as the children of the most productive generation ever, Baby Boomers were handed cheap, debt-free educations, full employment, affordable housing, locked-tight pensions and a lifetime of security. What they have left for the generations after them, starting most notably with mine, Generation X, is an expensive mess.
Last fall, a University of British Columbia study showed Canadian parents today are raising families with less money and time than Boomers, even though the country’s economy has doubled since 1976. Compared to retirees in the 1970s, Boomers retiring today have higher incomes along with more wealth because the housing market nearly doubled over their adult lives.
The study found the average household income for young Canadian couples has flat-lined since the mid-1970s (after adjusting for inflation) even though the share of young women contributing to household incomes today is up 53 per cent. While household incomes have stalled, post-Boomer generations are simultaneously struggling because housing prices increased 76 per cent across the country.
In Ontario, housing prices increased eight times faster than household incomes for young couples, even though young women increased their labour force participation by nearly 40 per cent since 1976.
And that’s just housing. Want to talk about the price of energy, food or tuition?
“The Occupy Wall Street movement and related protests across North America signal a growing concern about inequity between the rich and the rest,” UBC professor Paul Kershaw explained. “Our pan-Canadian study shows we can only address these pressures by tackling the inherent intergenerational tension.”
But that’s not happening. The federal government’s latest budget does nothing but perpetuate – even in certain areas accelerate – the inter-generational problem. There is no shared burden. (Seriously, no means testing for the wealthiest Boomers?)
The solution for post-Boomers is complicated, but the first step is simple: Get involved.
These are the days I wish we had an activist culture on our campus. Too bad the budget announcement didn’t serve beer; perhaps more youth would have paid attention.
Elsewhere, younger generations have taken to the streets over tuition hikes in Quebec, high unemployment in Spain and social inequity in Great Britain.
Heck, I know most North Americans won’t put their iPads down long enough to take to the streets. But how about voting every now and then? So long as post-Boomer voting turnout continues in the mid-30 per cents against Boomer turnout in the mid-70s, what’s the surprise?
Until we get involved, penny or no, post-Boomers won’t see much change.