Author Samuel Moyn, 54, had a piece in The New York Times in which he goes after the “gerontocratic society” because, he argues, old people own too much. Headline: “Older Americans Are Hoarding America’s Potential.”
I don’t get what Moyn wants, other than to upend human nature and remove this country’s commitment to rewarding hard work and good habits.
Moyn has cooked up his own special brand of “unfairness,” “a gerontocratic society in which the old control ever more power and wealth, leading to overrepresentation in political life and unequal power in social life.”
I’ll start with wealth.
Before I was born, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had ushered through Social Security, which was designed to provide retirement income for one-time workers.
Over time, numbers crunchers realized the system is becoming unsustainable. According to a federal report, the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund will be able to pay 100% of total scheduled benefits until 2033. After 2033, the nation’s debt — now more than $110,000 per person — only will get worse without changes.
As fewer Americans have enjoyed employer-funded pension plans, private savings filled in the gap. The advent of 401(k)s and IRAs allowed workers to put aside extra money for their retirement so they could have a reserve funds for emergencies and/or higher living on top of benefits that are lower than $24,000 annually.
Such saving used to be considered a good thing — a sign of personal responsibility. As the saying goes, a penny saved is a penny earned.
Now, in some corners, seniors with savings suddenly are moochers who have too much. Something must be done.
I look at my career. I started off with low-paying low-status jobs. As I aged, I developed skills that paid more. I worked harder and lived better. Bought and sold homes. I have more assets in the twilight of my career than I had in the start. I don’t know how to change that dynamic without poisoning the U.S. economy with magical thinking.
Are there reforms that would make sense? Sure, one answer is entitlement reform, which I generally support. Alas, I suspect Moyn’s remedies only would fuel the growth of the national debt. And guess who gets stuck with the burgeoning national debt? Not today’s seniors.
As for Moyn’s lament that the old have too much power, his examples are chilling. Older people vote more than young adults. To fix this dynamic, he flirts with making voting mandatory and lowering the voting age. Moyn’s remedy could entail handing the keys to the country over to teens who may not want to vote, can’t enlist in the military and never had to pay the rent.
Genius. (He thinks.)
Do you believe that America’s big problem is too many seniors who vote too much for fellow oldsters and have too many assets? What do you think would happen if Moyn’s prescription actually happened?
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