Veteran journalist Paul Taylor and the Pew Research Centercrunched the numbers and did some thought-provoking analysis on the troublingpotential for economic strife between generations. Fewer young people aresupporting growing numbers of retirees through Social Security and Medicare,the middle class is shrinking (from outsourcing, the digital revolution andautomation), class divisions are widening, politics are gridlocked and tolerancegrows alongside polarization. Taylor explores the phenomenon of millennialsliving with their parents as an economic problem but also an expression of thePeter Pan syndrome. Convinced that America is “robbing the future to pay forthe present,” Taylor’s policy prescriptions, taken with a spoonful of hope, assumecompromise on Social Security and other issues with everyone but the neediest givingup something.
