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The economic crisis affects us all. It doesn't affect us all equally, though. Its impact is as different as the generations themselves. Take the baby boomers -- the best-educated, hardest-working and most affluent generation in American history. Well, 17 percent of boomers say they are unemployed and looking for work. Barely one in three says they have achieved the American dream.
-John McLaughlin |
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POOJA JAITLY (job seeker): (From videotape.) My friends and I are all in a place where everything is unknown, especially those of us that don't have jobs yet or aren't going to school. It's scary. Am I underqualified? Am I overqualified? I don't know what I'm doing wrong. When I go to interviews, there are people there that are 20, 30 years older than me.
JACKIE BUNNER (job seeker): (From videotape.) People aren't leaving their jobs, you know, with the economy and everything, so there's not positions opening up for us.
MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The economic crisis affects us all. It doesn't affect us all equally, though. Its impact is as different as the generations themselves. Take the baby boomers -- the best-educated, hardest-working and most affluent generation in American history. Well, 17 percent of boomers say they are unemployed and looking for work. Barely one in three says they have achieved the American dream.
The meltdown liquidated their home values, 401Ks, stock portfolios. Optimism that they'll achieve the dream dropped 6 percent between '09 and '10. The boomers are swelling the ranks of the tea party. Polling data on tea-party supporters is nearly identical to polling data on baby boomers.
Question: Are the boomers reliving their youth by once again taking their protests to the streets, Beth?
MS. HIRSHHORN: No, they're not. There's 80 million boomers, so -- and there are very few people on the street now. So the boomers are right now -- it doesn't mean they're happy. They're right now more stressed than they've ever been. Half of them are losing sleep over concerns about paying bills and making ends meet. But we don't see them taking to the streets in large numbers.
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