Released: May 23, 2006

A generation of debtors grow up owing

Source: By Mischa Gaus, In These Times [AlterNet]

The children of baby boomers are the new debtor class. Buckling under a heavy weight of debt, new workers step into an economy of low-wage and contingent work, a combination that makes the basics of adulthood increasingly unattainable.

“We grew up in the Regan era where everything was fake, voodoo economics, and we’re not seeing the connections,” says Anya Kamenetz, author of Generation Debt. “I don’t think we can continue treating people as disposable, not providing them with health care or the means to save.”

Educational debt is the most visible - but not the only - barrier to the well-being of the “millennial generation,” roughly defined as Americans born after 1978. Every gate on the way to middle-class life is now tougher to unlock. Mortgages, health insurance expenses, car maintenance, child care and tax loads for two-income families have all ballooned.

The accumulating stress on this generation is spilling over - not yet into the street, as it did in France in late March, but into some emerging forms of collective action.

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