Young Workers Can't Miss What They Never Knew
I agree with my friend David that a new populism may be taking shape in America. My question is whether it can be a populism that doesn't only speak to the anger of the middle aged and older, but also stirs the idealism of the young. That's a tall order, but Barack Obama's campaign is convincing me that it just might be possible.
Maybe it's a function of his age, but Obama seems to grasp something about younger workers today that older lefties like me usually miss: it's that while people in their 20s and early 30s are acutely aware that their jobs are much less secure than the ones their parents had, they're not necessarily angry about it. Don't get me wrong: they'll tell you it sucks and that they wish they had a better deal at work, but the deep resentments that tend to stoke up populist uprisings just aren't there. One of the reasons why is that it's hard to convince people they've been robbed of something they never owned.
I was reminded of that in a conversation I had not long ago with a young college grad who'd just landed his first "real" job.
"How are the benefits?" I asked. "The benefits are great," he beamed. "We have pensions and everything." But, as we talked, it became clear that his "pension" really wasn't that at all, but a 401 (k) plan. I explained the difference between that and a defined benefit plan. "Well," he shrugged, "I've never run across one of those"
However, it's not only a matter of not missing what they don't have. Many young workers are convinced that the rules of the "new economy" have rendered the social contract between workers and management obsolete.
In his book, David makes mention of research I did into the attitudes of younger white collar workers toward unions. As part of that project Celinda Lake conducted a series of focus groups. One of the locations we chose was San Jose where Celinda conducted similar research for an organization I worked with in 1995. What we found was that the economic insecurity workers voiced then had mushroomed over those ten years. The out-sourcing and growing reliance on temps that workers in lower rung technical jobs talked about then was now a factor for highly skilled professionals, too. Many of those we heard from were contract employees and freelancers themselves. But even though they were like trapeze artists working without a net, they were slow to place blame and recoiled at the prospect of confronting their employers. Instead, they told us that in the new economy instability is a fact of life. If working at one job was bad, you could always move on to another. The best strategy? Be really good at what you do (plug: you can find a copy of the research report on my website: www.jimgrossfeld.com).
With their conviction that this economy is unlike any that came before it -- and their acceptance of its new rules, in ignorance of the old -- it shouldn't be any surprise that John Edwards' class conscious, bare knuckled populism fell flat with young voters. As difficult as their worklives might be, few choose to see themselves as victims. Yes, they want change they can believe in, but they also don't want a confrontation to get it. Against that backdrop it only makes sense that Obama's "post-partisan" message would capture the imagination -- and the votes -- of younger Americans.
I think populists can build a movement that inspires the young, but, to do it, they're going to need to rethink their message and retool their strategy. For starters that may mean sounding less like John Edwards, and a whole lot more like Barack Obama.
Did you explain to him that a 401K is portable from employer to employer and a pension is not?
Did you explain to him that a 401K has value for him on paycheck #1, but if he quits, gets fired, or the company folds before the years it takes for vesting in a pension he gets ZIP?
Did you explain that a pension not indexed for inflation is not a reliable source of retirement income?
Did you explain that default risk can be divirsified in a 401K, but is concentrated in a pension?
Did you explain to him the risk he assumes by having his current livelyhood and his retirement both tied to the fortunes of one employer?
July 11, 2008 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
401Ks can lose value a lot faster than pensions.
They depend on the stock market even more than pensions.
I'd love to have a pension plan rather than just a 401K ... but I'm also old enough to remember when they were available.
I blame the corp-rats and the investment-pushers.
July 11, 2008 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
What the young need is an education in history -- particularly but not only that of labor -- instead of viewing political candidates from the shallow perspective of celebrities akin to rock stars.
It amazes: I had conversation with a 24-year-old who shrugs her shoulders, with some disparaging, at the Boomer generation because, today, "Young people are for such gay marriage. What's the big deal?"
In short: she has no sense of history, no sense of the extremity of opposition to such "minor" pieces of legislation as the 1964 "Civil Rights Act" and the 1965 "Voting Rights Act". She is learning about Medgar Evers and Hattie Carroll -- from Bob Dylan -- but she doesn't yet get the visceral reality of it:
Medgar Evers, an NAACP lawyer, was ASSASSINATED in 1963. Why? Because he was engaged in VOTER REGISTRATION of blacks in the South. How important is the vote, the right to vote, the right to have one's vote COUNTED? So important that activist proponents of it have been MURDERED for doing so.
That right, and the extremist reactions to it, are a paradigm which applies to every issue, across the board, as concerns economic status -- class -- issues. A white right-wing Republican will screw a poor white as quickly as s/he will screw a (poor) "person of color".
It isn't only about racism (or "gay rights"): it is about economic justice FOR ALL, not only for me -- and "FUCK EVERYONE ELSE!"
Reagan's anti-unionism -- anti-employEE -- destructiveness as certainly had its trickle, but UP the employment ladder.
And it has had its social consequences: there was a time when the way regular people got things accomplished was by acting as a coalition of interests: everyone "special interest" group worked with all the others for EVERYONE'S interests.
Today it's everyone for himself; and if there's a coalition, it's about, "Let's get MY stuff accomplished!" or "Mine first!"
My group of activists, on my issue, will accept support from anyone and everyone. And we'll say thank you. But we'll never even THINK to return the favor. And when a request for support comes in, it will get no response of any kind.
Reagan and the right-wingers complained about the "Balkinization" of America by "Liberals"; but it is they who have achieved that end by their focus on greed and an extreme individualism which would make few -- other than Ayn Rand and Soviet Anarachists -- happy.
The notion that "insecurity" is the new norm is result of a vacuous lack of knowledge of history. "When you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything" -- whether it be a political candidate who tells you what you want to hear, or a false argument agsinst Social Security from those who opposed it when FDR first proposed it. Those who don't know the history, the politics, the economics -- the facts -- behind the New Deal, and Social Security, are suckers for the false promise of short-term gain in exchange for a pre-Social Security "future".
How 401Ks work in reality, as compared with pensions, is important, but is a bit of a tree as concerns the forest. But I suppose teaching a child "That is a tree" is a step toward the child recognizing what a forest is. But it's only about MONEY, and nothing about BEING AN EQUAL WITH OTHERS IN SOCIETY. Is society -- which is a "family" -- ONLY about money and budgets? ONLY about money, and budgets, with entertainment the only alternative?
July 11, 2008 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Grossfeld -
A nice post. I think you're right. Boomers remember when things were better. Millennials don't. I agree, it accounts for a lot.
And, most importantly, it's a real distinction between the generations that can be mentioned without being an attack on either one.
We need to learn how to bridge it.
July 11, 2008 7:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why not just go ahead and sound like John McCain? Doesn't his message fit the environment you describe even better than Obama's? It's not clear that the kind of stability and security you're talking about has much to do with the government. Isn't it more the result of a "commoditization" of both the products and factors of production across the board?
July 12, 2008 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't have a choice between a 401(k) and a pension, as you point out. Employers are phasing out pensions and 401(k)s are the new retirement benefit. But I don't feel that I've lost anything in that. At least my 401(k) moves with me from job to job so if a competitor offers me a higher salary to go work for them, I don't have to weigh the value of my pension into the decision -- I can go after the higher salary now and take my savings with me. What's so bad about that? While I see the value of old school pensions I can't say that I really want one.
July 12, 2008 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Did you explain that a pension not indexed for inflation is not a reliable source of retirement income?
Um, 401ks are not inflation-indexed either, nor are they a particlarly reliable sources of retirement income. Indeed, given the fact that pensions are government-gauaranteed (if the pension fund fails retireees under the plan continue to receive their checks) and also the fact that your pension check will continue until the day you breathe your last, I would suggest that pensions are more secure than 401ks. To be sure the latter have their benefits too, like portability, but don't ignore the fact that they have some serious defects as well.
Re: Employers are phasing out pensions
I would put that in the past tense. Outside of unionized industries pensions are rare as hen's teeth in the private sector nowadays.
July 12, 2008 1:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
As of September 30, 2007 the PBGC, which insures defined benefit plans, only, reported that it "covered 44 million participants in over 30,000 active plans." Total non-farm employment which includes government workers was 137,837,000.
The "44 million participants" are employed in private industry, only [the PBGC does not insure plans for government employees (whether federal, state, or local)"]. Total union members working in private industry are 8.1 million.
Thus, at least 81% of employees covered under defined benefit plans maintained by non-governmental employers are non-union workers.
July 12, 2008 3:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Thus, at least 81% of employees covered under defined benefit plans maintained by non-governmental employers are non-union workers.
Sorry Ellen, your numbers are not credible, at least not for younger workers. There may still be a fair number of older workers approaching retirement who still have pensions, but pensions are rarely offered to younger workers nowadays. I've been in the work force (not counting parttime college and teenage jobs) since 1992 and I have only once had or been interviewed for a job with an old-fahshioned pension. (Full discloure: this job is my curent job-- with a very major worldwide corporation). Also, I'm wondering if those 40 million include people already retired-- they are certainly "covered participants" so my guess is that retirees are what inflated your numbers far outside the reality of today's workplace.
July 13, 2008 10:30 PM | Reply | Permalink